Bangkok: Em, a 28-year-old Thai woman married to a British man, was deserted by her husband after years of arguments and conflict. He took their daughter back to England without either the mother's consent or a goodbye.
"I cannot get a divorce from my husband because I don't know his whereabouts and worst of all I don't have enough money to go to Britain to look for my daughter," said Em, a pseudonym.
Em is now stranded - married, traumatized and unable to get a divorce. She is unsure of how she can retrieve her nine-year-old daughter from a foreign country. Her situation is not unique.
"There are a rising number of Thai women entering into cross-cultural marriages each year. This has raised concerns from several women's organisations about the unfairness of Thai family laws and the lack of legal knowledge among Thai women," said the Director of Women and Youth Studies Programme at Thammasat University, Malee Pruekpongsawalee.
Following up on its reputation as the Land of Smiles, Thailand is fast becoming the land full of foreign son-in-laws, especially in the northeastern region of the country where provinces such as Udon Thani and Roi Et top the list of domiciles for Thai ladies married to Western men, mostly from Germany, Britain and Scandinavian countries.
A 2006 study on cross-cultural marriages of Thai women in the northeast, Thailand's poorest region, funded by The National Culture Commission Office investigated the risks and consequences such marriages pose to cultural and traditional values in Thai rural areas.
"More Isaan (north-eastern Thai) women each year marry Western men to improve the quality of life for their families. The marriages have brought them more financial independence and, even in some cases, a steady monthly income to their parents," said researcher Assistant Professor Buaphan Promphakping from Khon Kaen University.
Cross-cultural marriages are not limited to Thailand's impoverished northeast.
Statistics from the Bangrak district Office in Bangkok - the most popular administrative centre for marriage registration whose name is translated from Thai as "the district of love" - showed a remarkably high percentage of the cross-cultural marriages registered last year.
"Out of the total 6,124 married couples registered at the Bangrak office in 2006, about 50 percent of them were Thai women and Western men. The number of cross-cultural marriages has been rising at around 10 percent or so every year over the past 25 years," said Putichai Buranaprapa, chief of Bangrak District registration office.
Statistics at the district office also showed that in 2006, out of the 384 registered divorces some 10 percent were cross-cultural.
With rising cross-cultural marriages a seemingly inevitable by product will be more cross-cultural divorces, drawing Thai women's rights groups to now pay more attention to the issue.
"In cross-cultural marriages, a lot of Thai women are financially dependent on their foreign husbands. Compounded with limited interaction between the spouses because of the language barrier, Thai women choose silence and compliance when domestic disputes occur for fear of losing the marriage," said Malee of Thammasat University.
"Most of these women are also ignorant about Thai family laws which still favour chauvinism in the country. And Thai women in cross-cultural marriages are generally unaware of the legal help available today due to the lack of accessible information," said Malee.
Thailand's divorce laws are clearly chauvinistic. For instance, a husband's adultery is not grounds for divorce unless he intentionally flaunts the relationship to the public, while any form of adultery a wife engages in, even the most discreet relationship, provides grounds for the husband to file for divorce immediately.
In Em's case, cited above, she can seek legal action to file for divorce on grounds of abandonment but the case would require a time and money consuming investigation in Britain, which she cannot afford.
Thai women's rights activists have been lobbying hard to change the country's unfair family laws, and they recently succeeded in changing Thailand's rape law to include marital rape. They are now planning to draft proposed legislation that would provide more legal protection for Thai women with foreign husbands.
"It may take a long time to get there, but the network will not stop fighting until gender equality is considered as an issue of major importance in Thai society," Malee said.
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