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| Taiwan's National Immigration Agency. (Photo: CNA) |
A migrant worker was recently fined by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) for trying to recruit women from his home country of Vietnam to marry his Taiwanese friend, via an online advertisement, according to Taiwan News. NIA refused to reveal the worker's identity.
In a news release on Friday (March 19), the NIA said the Vietnamese man violated Taiwan's Immigration Act by posting a marriage ad on Facebook to attract foreign brides. The message in the advertisement was written in Vietnamese, and personal details of his Taiwanese friend were provided, it said.
The NIA emphasized that it is illegal to promote cross-cultural marriages via advertisements, regardless of which language they are written in. It noted that more than 80 percent of individuals who flouted the law last year shared their advertisements on the internet, adding that such offenses would incur fines of between NT$100,000 (US$3,521) and NT$500,000.
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| A Vietnamese worker fined for advertising cross-cultural marriage for a Taiwanese friend. (Photo: Taiwan News) |
The agency urged foreign nationals in Taiwan to avoid promoting cross-cultural marriages as a form of merchandise on social media. Instead, they should attempt to set up actual meetings for their friends in the country and from home, it suggested.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese who are interested in marrying foreign brides should contact legal matchmaking organizations, the NIA said. Pursuing cross-national marriages through illegal ads could be considered as a breach of immigrant laws, it warned, said Immigration News.
Taiwan is one of the major destinations for Vietnamese labor migrants, especially in the manufacturing and fisheries industries. A total of 147,387 Vietnamese worked overseas in 2019, with about 54,480, or 37 percent, worked in Taiwan, CNA reported. Taiwan welcomed the most Vietnamese workers in the past, but this changed after Japan opened up to foreign labor.
Despite the effects of the Wuhan coronavirus, the number of Vietnamese studying in Taiwan has increased by 330 percent over the past three years. According to Taiwanese government statistics, there were 17,421 Vietnamese students in Taiwan in 2019. Such has been the influx that Vietnamese are now the second-largest student nationality in Taiwan after Chinese.
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Valerie Mai
