Divorced Vietnamese women face hardship after returning from South Korea

Why divorced Vietnamese women face hardship after returning from South Korea

 

Thanh Thao, 43, of Hai Phong, knows this struggle all too well. She has faced it alongside her son, Kim Min Jun, since returning to Vietnam.

Thao married through a matchmaking service in 2006, but was disillusioned upon arriving in South Korea. Her husband, 24 years older, was an unemployed alcoholic who had been divorced four times. They lived in a remote mountain village near the border, where she was forced to live with his son from a previous marriage, who was four years older than her.

In 2010 her husband unilaterally filed for divorce so he could marry a sixth wife.