2 Aug 2005

Matchmaking or human trafficking?

If anyone has any other related stories, please feel free to post them here in the comments section, anonymously if you like, or email them to me. If you wish to report directly to an international organisation then email:

Report'AT'PolarisProject.org

From Yawning Bread and first spotted on Tomorrow.sg.


I have written two previous articles about the quickie-bride business in Vietnamese brides and Vietnam's house of virgins. In both, I expressed my strong opinion about how unsavoury this kind of quickie match-making is.

Now, a reader of Yawning Bread -- let's call him Terence -- has provided me with information about an even seamier underside of this business, which may qualify as human trafficking. Terence seems convinced that Singapore is looking the other way while other countries have been doing something about it.

Naturally, it is very difficult to get hard proof about the most disturbing aspects of his story, for the more sensitive the matter, the more closely the businessmen involved will guard those secrets. This is something that only determined investigators, able to set up undercover operations, can penetrate.

But Terence's inside information has an internally consistent logic and is very plausible as a business method. Perhaps not all matchmaking agencies operate like this, but among the lot, some will be using the business model described below, not least because Singapore and some other countries aren't doing anything to stop it.
to continue reading click here.

Yawning Bread finishes the article with a request for others to forward this information on to either local or international authorities who might be able to do something. I have forwarded the information regarding contacting Polaris to Yawning Bread as they currently have the first hand email they received from 'Terrence'.

Related Articles and Links:
Sex trafficking growing in S.E.Asia
Trafficking in Persons Report
Conference on Tackling the Demand for Child Tourism and Sex Trafficking in East and Southeast Asia
UNIFEM Singapore
Polaris Project
Standing Against Global Exploitation
Protection Project
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Captive Daughters


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