Poverty drives many women from the Mekong region to gamble on marriage in China, double-locked by low education levels and a social expectation to provide for parents. Nary — whose name has been changed on her request — spoke to a Cambodian marriage broker on her older brother’s advice. The marriage trade is big business — official figures say 10,000 Cambodian women alone are registered in the southern provinces of Guangdong, Guizhou and Yunnan. But her immigration status caught up with her and she was held in a detention center for a year with scores of Vietnamese and Cambodian women, all with similar tales. Now she works for minimum wage in a garment factory, free from a bad marriage, but separated from her child.

Source: Egypt Independent December 11, 2018 09:05 UTC