South Koreans seeking to marry foreign spouses will now have to go through more close screening on their marital state and financial statement under guidelines that enter into force next month, the Ministry of Justice said Wednesday, an effort to minimize side effects from problematic international marriages.
The legal revision was the latest move by the Korean government to protect foreign spouses from mentally ill or financially incompetent husbands and to curb false marriage scams as it has stepped up monitoring of matchmaking agencies and is expanding counseling services for foreign wives.
Under the new rule that takes effect on March 7, those who seek a foreign spouse will be asked to present their financial statement and marital status, particularly whether they had invited bribes from other countries more than twice over the past five years, the ministry said.
For those who apply for F-2 spouse visas, the diplomatic offices abroad will thoroughly review whether the relationship is legitimate in order to screen out job seekers under the false pretense of marriage, the ministry said.
The new guidelines also require those who had their spouses' visas turned down to wait for another six months before reapplying for the same visa, it noted, in a bid to curb excessive applications and give the couples time to reconsider the marriage.
South Koreans who want to marry a foreigner are obliged to take courses on international marriage to fulfill prerequisite qualifications, officials added.
"Although the matter of marriage lies in the personal arena, false and speedy international marriages are intertwined with social problems," said Son Hong-ki, a ministry official in charge of foreign affairs. "The specific legal guidelines on international marriages will help create healthy multicultural families."
As gender imbalance has become more and more pronounced here with women moving to cities, many men from farming villages search for a wife in Southeast Asian nations through matchmaking agencies.
One out of every 10 marriages in 2009, or 33,300 out of 309,759, were international marriages, most of them between Korean men and women from China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Divorces of international couples made up 9.4 percent of the total here during the period.