‘Bachelor bomb’ threatens rural areas

Hai Q. in Cai Be District in the Mekong Delta Tien Giang Province, and Sau T. the owner of an agricultural supplies shop in the same district, wanted to arrange the marriage between their kids.

Q.’s 22-year-old son was doing well - managing four-hectare of rice paddies while T.’s daughter was studying at university in Ho Chi Minh City.

The families were crushed when the daughter said she wasn’t interested in marrying a farmer – no matter how well off he was – she wanted to marry a city man.

“I just want to have a husband in HCMC,” she said.

Nguyen Minh Nhi, former head of An Giang Province’s government, told a similar story of a poor girl who turned down the proposal of a wealthy neighbor only because she wanted to tie the knot with an urban dweller.

The trend has become very common in Mekong Delta provinces in recent years, said Nguyen Hong Dien, chairwoman of the Hau Giang Province’s Women Union.

“Rural girls have flocked in droves to urban areas to look for jobs. I hardly see any of them return to their villages to marry local men,” Dien said.

“Even when they could not find prosperous men to marry, they’d rather marry workers in urban areas and settle there,” she said.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Huong, the office manager of Dong Thap Province Women’s Union in the Mekong Delta, agreed.

“The majority of people in rural areas in Dong Thap are the elderly and children, as many young girls leave for Can Tho City, An Giang Province, or HCMC to look for jobs,” Huong said.

The Mekong Delta An Giang’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said in a recent report that female worker numbers in the local fisheries sector had increased to around 9,500. An Giang is the home of many fish processing plants which employ thousands.

The women’s union officials blamed the exodus from the rural areas largely on country girls’ dreams of better lives with a husband in the city.

Popular dramas and movies have focused on prosperous lives in urban areas, creating a perception in rural girls that settling down in major cities or provinces was the only way to have better lives, the women said adding that a “bachelor bomb” was likely to hit rural Vietnam in the near future.

But they said rural men could also blame themselves because so many were poorly educated and drank a lot after work.

Tran Van Nam, a 25-year-old bachelor of Thoai Son District in An Giang Province, admitted there was a lot of males who drank in the Mekong Delta provinces, saying it was virtually their sole recreation after work.

“I’ve left school after sixth grade and three girls have rejected my marriage proposals. Now I just put marriage down to destiny,” Nam said.

Tien Chau Commune in the central Quang Nam Province is also home to many bachelors, as the local girls have left for urban areas in the hope of better jobs and better lives.

The commune officials said a third of the population in the three hamlets were aged between18 and 30 but a lot of the young females had left, turning it into a bachelor town.

Foreign marriages

Mekong Delta Women Union officials also pointed to the high number of girls seeking foreign husbands.

They hope to secure marriages with rural Taiwanese or South Korean men who were also hit by the “bachelor bomb” back home, they said.

For instance, the Dong Thap’s Women Union said that since 1995, more than 11,800 local girls have married foreigners.

The high numbers paved the way for illegal marriage brokerage services.

In Vietnam, individuals and organizations are forbidden to carry out marriage brokerages.

Though only non-profit women’s associations can establish marriage support centers and marriage consultation services, the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice has recommended that the government legalize marriage brokering so that there could be better control of the industry.

Source: TN, SGTT