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THE Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) has called for a governing body to regulate matchmaking agencies that offer foreign brides.
The women's group feels there are not enough checks on the industry, which has evolved “largely unmonitored and unregulated” over the years.
A recent study by the group found that too few questions were asked of prospective grooms regarding their marital status, criminal records and state of financial and physical health.Noting that these agencies were largely “profit-driven”, Aware said: “They may not conduct the necessary checks on their clients, leaving prospective foreign brides in a vulnerable position.”
In contrast, the agencies usually conduct strict checks on the prospective brides, especially on their sexual health and virginity.
Such lax screening of prospective grooms allowed a 64-year-old cobbler to lie to a matchmaking agency about his background, duping it into allowing him to take a young Vietnamese woman on a date and conning her into sex over five days in a Geylang hotel.
After Fan Kiet Teng had had his fun, he dumped the 21-year-old back at the agency with a dud cheque.
Fan had lied that he was a widower and also that he earned S$2,000 (RM4,580) a month when he actually made only S$1,000 (RM2,290) mending shoes. In December last year, he was jailed 54 monthsfor cheating.
Aware suggests that such matchmaking agencies be compelled to verify a groom’s background as soon as he registers with them.
The report said: “The matchmaking agency is the entity in which the foreign bride will place her confidence, and the way it conducts its business has a significant impact on the couple and, in particular, the bride.”
The foreign-brides phenomenon has ballooned in recent years, with about 70 agencies operating in Singapore now. Last year, 6,520 Singaporean men – or one in four grooms – tied the knot with foreign brides, the highest number in the last 10 years.
Many of the men still traditionally choose Malaysians and Indonesians, although brides from Vietnam and China are growing in popularity.
Singapore men pay agencies between S$5,000 and S$20,000 (RM11,450 and RM45,800) for a bride. Some men go overseas to see their brides while other agencies fly the women to the republic to meet their prospective husbands.
A Straits Times check with 15 such agencies in Chinatown, Beach Road and Katong found that four allowed clients to take their women out on dates before they even screened them properly.
In exchange for a registration fee ranging from S$50 to S$200 (RM114.50-RM458), a man can take out an unlimited number of women on as many “dates” as he wants before settling on his choice of wife.
What happens on these dates is basically what both sides agree upon. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
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