Naturally, it is very difficult to get hard proof about the most disturbing aspects of his story, for the more sensitive the matter, the more closely the businessmen involved will guard those secrets. This is something that only determined investigators, able to set up undercover operations, can penetrate.

But Terence's inside information has an internally consistent logic and is very plausible as a business method. Perhaps not all matchmaking agencies operate like this, but among the lot, some will be using the business model described below, not least because Singapore and some other countries aren't doing anything to stop it.

* * * * *

To recapitulate a little, the matchmaking agencies arrange packaged tours to Vietnam (or Cambodia, Kalimantan, or wherever next), during which eager bachelors (almost always Chinese. often in their late 30s or 40s) choose a potential bride from a line-up. Then a few social dates are set up and a decision to get married is made in another day or two.

Within the same week-long packaged trip, a wedding is organised and by the week's end, they're husband and wife. If you believe this is all wonderfully romantic, if you believe these are affairs of the heart, God bless you.

On the face of it, such businesses make money from the package tours and the introduction fees. But the arrangements made between the matchmaking agency and the girls (or their families) comes in various shades, and aren't free from financial entanglements either. Some of the darker shades may involve daughters sold to these agencies by families in financial distress. See also the article,  Parents in denial, children at risk where I wrote,

In Cambodia, a commonly reported scenario is one where the mother or older relative takes a young girl to a brothel, and using her as collateral, obtains a loan. The girl then has to work off the bond. 

Do note however, that in the above paragraph, I was referring to child prostitution. In this article I do not imply that the "girls" or "women" from Vietnam or wherever are underage.

* * * * *

Below is what my reader, Terence, told me. He has a trading company, for which he has to travel frequently to Vietnam. He has been watching this match-making business for some time, and in fact has made enquiries out of curiosity.

According to his email, the match-making agencies who advertise in Singapore are more than just trans-national between Vietnam and Singapore. They have either branches or affiliates in Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia as well, a point that will become pertinent further down.

Not only do they have girls on parade in Saigon, they generally have some girls available on the spot in Singapore too. If you go to their local offices, he told me, you will be shown 6 or 7 girls behind a big glass window.

The matchmakers are likely to tell you that the girls have been "certified by local doctors to be HIV-free, VD-free and are virgins," according to Terence.

He did a round of these places pretending to be an interested customer and when he said he might be in financial difficulty, he was "even offered an installment scheme by 3 agencies." He was quite convinced the financing would come from "their friends in the money-lending business." That is, loan sharks.

Terence has also spoken to matchmakers in Vietnam itself -- these are the native Vietnamese matchmakers, to be distinguished from the Singaporean/Taiwanese matchmakers. Two part-time matchmakers there are his friends. From them, he learnt of a very different side to this whole business.

An important distinction is made by the Vietnamese matchmakers between the 'good' girls and the, well I suppose we have to call them the 'not so good' ones.

"Good parents," Terence was told, "will never allow their good daughters to travel overseas for matchmaking."

In any case, "the usual time period for good, pretty girls to be chosen in HCM city is approximately 1 to 2 weeks. They will not take the risk of going overseas."

So who are those who are taken out of Vietnam by the matchmakers? Terence tells me, these ones have been sold by their families. Or perhaps they bonded themselves for a large loan.

They are then rotated around Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia on social visit passes. If our officials want to do something about this, Terence said, they can easily "check their passports for verification."

If the girls are successfully matched, they have to pay "a tidy sum... in return for the lodging and marketing cost."

But if 3 months (usually) have passed without success, they "will be forced to take up part-time prostitution to repay the... costs incurred by the matchmakers."

Thus Terence concluded: "Behind the scenes, these matchmakers are actually big-time human traffickers as, in actual fact, they're selling these girls to anyone, not just Singaporeans .....under the cover of matchmaking."

"Many of these girls end up in the Middle Eastern countries as prostitutes."

Terence learnt this from the Vietnamese matchmakers on his many trips to Saigon.

Until a few years ago, girls were also on display in Taiwan and Korea, but these countries, said Terence, have stopped this. Singapore has not.

In fact, the agencies here are beginning to talk of girls from Cambodia. The tentacles of this business are reaching more countries.

* * * * * 

"According to the Vietnamese matchmakers," he said, "those girls who are able to speak Mandarin are mostly divorcees from Taiwan or karaoke and massage palour girls who have worked in HCM city."

As massage parlour girls, they might have had motivation and opportunity to pick up some Mandarin to please travelling businessmen from the region.

Yet, these matchmaking agencies invariably advertise that all their girls on offer are virgins. If you believe that divorcees, karaoke hostesses and masseuses are virgins, God bless you again.

The real virgins are likely to be daughters sold by families in financial distress, which in turn creates another set of problems. After a successful match, they get very needy about money from their husbands, and not surprisingly, many marriages end in divorce (or the women simply run away). But by then, they may have picked up some Mandarin, which means they can re-join the line-up at the matchmaker's, this time with an additional language asset. Given their circumstances, they have to try for another husband, otherwise how will they continue to send money to the family? The cycle is difficult to break out of.

* * * * *

Terence wrote to me because, watching the business, he feels "that it is really shameful that the government is actually closing more than an eye to it."

We let this business develop under our noses. Our Sunday Times write glowing feature articles about Vietnamese and other quickie brides.

If any reader knows what investigation and enforcement agencies can intervene, whether domestic or international, please pass them a copy of this story. Do something, or else we'll all be collectively culpable.

© Yawning Bread