For the first time in seven months, Chinese national Chen Yanfei, 31,
came face-to-face with her missing husband - in front of a court judge
last Monday.
The Shenzhen resident asked him to cough up some
money for their four-year-old son. Singaporean Tan Jiak Hee, 59, is
alleged to have abandoned both Ms. Chen and their son last year.
Not
only are banks and finance companies feeling the credit crunch, the
troubled economy is also claiming another group of victims - foreign
brides.
Various organisations report a rising number of
foreign-born women who say the same men who spent thousands of dollars
to bring them here are now withholding cash, threatening divorce, and
in some extreme cases, dumping them at the airport with a one-way
ticket home.
The Hainan Hwee Kuan, a clan association, said the
number of Hainanese brides it assists has more than doubled - from 25
to 56 - since September last year.
Lawyer Cheng Kim Kuan, who
handles legal disputes between foreign brides and their husbands at the
clan association for free, said he receives one new case every week on
average.
Many foreign brides say they are being abused at home -
locked up and not given money to spend. Others say they are treated
like maids.
Mr. Cheng said he expects this number to rise even
further as more jobs are lost. ‘These men think of their wives as
expendable objects, like furniture,’ he said.
Most of these men
are mature blue-collar workers who cannot afford new wives when their
jobs are axed and belts have to be tightened.
Ms. Fu Xi Bin of
Heng Mei Matchmaking Services, which specialises in recruiting
Hainanese brides, called the men’s actions a ‘cost-cutting measure’.
‘Yes, it’s extreme, but not surprising if the man is not in love with his wife.’
Ms.
Susie Wong, chairman of women’s shelter, Star Shelter, said the number
of foreign brides it houses has doubled from four to eight this month.
‘Under normal circumstances, there are already family abuses cases.
What more in a recession?’
Most of the women she helps are from the Philippines.
Brides from Vietnam, another popular locale for bachelors here to source for partners, have felt the pinch too.
An
embassy official estimates that the number of Vietnamese brides who
approach them for help has gone up from three to five a month since
last year.
‘Many people have lost their jobs,’ said one abandoned bride, who asked not to be named. ‘We’re not so different.’
The
cost of a foreign bride, including agency fees and airfares, ranges
from $5,000 to $10,000. In the last six months, at least 15 businesses
here dealing in foreign brides have closed shop.
Without many friends and with no family here, foreign brides in Singapore have little recourse when marriages turn sour.
Their
plight is compounded by the fact that many hold only long-term social
visit passes which have to be renewed by their husbands every 90 days -
a rule that some use to coerce their wives into keeping mum about being
bullied.
Few can afford to hire lawyers and, unlike Singaporean
wives, are turned away from free or subsidised legal advice at centres
whose services are for citizens and permanent residents only.
In
one extraordinary case reported to the Hainan Hwee Kuan last December,
a young Hainanese woman alleged that her husband forced her to sign
divorce papers before packing her off to the airport the next day.
They had been married for less than a year and she was six months’ pregnant.
In
the divorce papers, the man is said to have stated that he was not
financially responsible for his wife, nor their child once they were
back in China.
Ms. Chen is trying to avoid the same fate. In
sworn affidavits filed in court in January, she alleged that Mr. Tan
had ‘neglected and refused to provide any reasonable maintenance for
our child’.
Mr. Tan, a part-time project supervisor, has asked
the judge to consider his ‘financial plight and heavy financial
obligations’ amid the economic downturn.
‘I don’t know how much
longer I can work. I have exhausted my very limited resources and my
CPF savings and so I cannot continue to provide for my child,’ he
claimed. ‘As the cost of living is fairly low in Shenzhen, my
contribution of $50 per month should be more than enough to see to the
child’s needs.’
Sometimes SG men at fault too. not overseas wives lah
Should the man be at fault for:
Not being productive enough to provide for their family?
Not predicting these results due to age gap and improper planning?
or
Gaymen's faults for:
Making it impossible for the old to retire earlier these days?
Old people to get fairly the same jobs the used to get?
I think the foreign birde biz willl continue to grow maybe I can bring in hot colombian and brazilian girls here too
This tells us that we need to vote the PAP out in the next election to save singapore
Originally posted by Chester_Lim:This tells us that we need to vote the PAP out in the next election to save singapore
With the PAP out, I doubt Singapore would improve/advance as fast as it is now. At least for a moment.
Originally posted by Catknight:I think the foreign birde biz willl continue to grow maybe I can bring in hot colombian and brazilian girls here too
yeah they are more independent don't really needs the husband.