WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION, MARRIAGE AND TRAFFICKING…
“Vietnamese being trafficked there [in China] include also
those who are old, deaf, or widow.... I followed her [trafficker].....
Some people said something to her that I could
not understand, but when I asked her later, she told me
that they wanted to buy me”.
Older women in their 40s reported having been “sold” as wives
for men in their sixties and seventies. The desire to get married explained
the departure of many women of the study sample (close to 30
percent), some of them were trafficked:
“I did not think that life there was better than here. She
[the trafficker] said that if I went there [China] my life will
be good because Chinese husbands will do everything to
support a wife and children and I will not have to do anything.
But I told myself that it is impossible that a husband
would do everything and I myself should also work. I just
though I should go for my own life... as a woman I need a
husband and children” (returnee).
In addition to the desire to get married or find a good husband,
there is a strong need for women to have children. Married women are
expected to have children and at least one son in order to continue the
husbands’ family line. At the individual level, the need to have children
is commonly felt for both emotional and economic reasons. Economically,
women themselves find that having a child is an important asset,
because they can be supported by their children when they reach old
age. Emotionally, the importance of children is even more pressing.
Such needs are particularly acute for women in their thirties and older.
One returnee stated:
“I do not think that I was trafficked. For my own life, I
wanted to have a child, so I went. I was already old when I
left [32 years old]. As I am getting old, I want to have a
child. Many people left for the same reason, not only me,
so I went”.
In addition to the social pressure of meeting social norms with respect
to marriage and childbearing, some women also desire to marry
for economic reasons. The idea of having a husband as an economic
asset underlines the decision to migrate for many women surveyed and
interviewed.
“Many women are like me, abandoned by husbands, very
poor. So we thought just go to get a husband to rely on
him”. (Returnee).
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