Cambodia puts temporary ban on marriages to Koreans

Mar 19, 2010, 11:08 GMT

Seoul - Cambodia's government has put a temporary ban on marriages of its people to South Koreans in a preventive measure against human trafficking, an official at the South Korean embassy in Cambodia told the Yonhap News Agency Friday.

'The Cambodian government has informed the South Korean embassy in Cambodia early this month that it will suspend receiving applications for international marriage between Cambodians and South Koreans,' Yonhap quoted the embassy official as saying.

The ban only applies to South Korean-Cambodian couples. Nearly 60 per cent of international marriages in the South-East Asian country are arranged matches to South Koreans, the official said.

Cambodia's restriction came as South Korea's Fair Trade Commission, the country's anti-trust agency, on Monday announced tough guidelines for matchmaking agencies that broker such marriages.

South Korea's international marriage brokerages have burgeoned in recent years to total 1,237 as a growing number of the country's men living in rural areas seek foreign wives, often from South-East Asia, because of a shortage of South Korean women willing to live in such regions.

Of the 6,458 South Korean male farmers or fishermen who got married in 2008, 38.3 per cent wed foreign brides, more than half of whom were from Vietnam, followed by Chinese and Filipino women, the local JoongAng Daily newspaper reported this week.

Cambodia banned brokered marriages in 2008, but from 2008 to 2009, South Korea saw its number of Cambodian brides more than double from 551 to 1,372, Yonhap reported.