Tragic Vietnamese victim

Home > Opinion > Editorials

Tragic Vietnamese victim

Published: 13 Mar. 2008, 21:54

The Daejeon High Court recently sentenced a man in his 40s to 12 years in prison on charges of assaulting and killing his foreign wife. The court’s ruling emphasized the need for careful consideration before marriage and sincere conversation between married couples. The ruling also lamented the brutality hidden inside people. We agree with the court’s ruling that the incident resulted from immaturity and the inhumanity in our society that imports foreign women as objects. Our pride as a leading world economy and civilized country has collapsed.
Huynh Mai, a 19-year-old Vietnamese woman, was introduced to a Korean man who was 27 years older than her by a marriage agency in December 2006 and married him the day they met. The couple started their life together here in May last year. She suffered from depression because she could not talk with her husband due to language differences. She wanted to go home about a month after they were married. And she was beaten to death by her drunk husband. The husband said he thought it was a fraudulent marriage. The wife passed away before she could tell her husband of her dreams and pains.
The letter that the young bride wrote to her husband was filled with frustration. “I don’t think you know how big it is for a woman to have a family. I just wanted us to depend on each other through happy talks but you carelessly mentioned divorce. I have no one to talk to but you.”
Her precious dream to make a happy family filled with love disappeared, along with her life, because of the husband’s rage, apathy and unwillingness to talk.
According to the National Statistical Office, the number of marriages between Koreans and non-Koreans went up from 15,000 in 1996 to 50,000 of 2006. Such marriages make up 12 percent of all marriages in the country. As Korean women were reluctant to live in rural regions, multicultural families skyrocketed in those regions. A political party recently designated the foreign wife of an international couple as one of its legislative candidates.
We should help them learn the Korean language so they can live here with fewer problems. Many misunderstandings and unfortunate incidents result from the paucity of conversation. The principle also applies to relationships between married couples. Talk a lot and love each other. To foster a healthy society and country, families should be happy. We express our deepest condolences to the young bride who passed away in a foreign country so tragically.