The first gender SRA seminar on cross-border marriage between Vietnam and China was organized at the Institute for Social Development Studies on 30 January. Nine people participated, and we had a very rich discussion after Mr Huy’s excellent presentation. I was surprised to learn as young as 13-14 want to leave their villages in search of a better life. They do not want to be poor farmers and wives like their mothers, and also want to be better treated as women and wives. Marriage brokers in Vietnam/China take advantage of these girls’ ambition and persuade them to go to China, using social media such as Facebook to attract them. The girls also identify more strongly as a Hmong than a Vietnamese, and crossing a physical border between Vietnam and China is far easier for them than crossing a cultural border between, for example, Hmong and Kinh. In China, Vietnamese wives are often viewed as a reproductive tool to sustain Chinese family linages, and in some cases, they are treated badly.
We agricultural researchers should engage more with such girls and young women to help them have more options in better lives within their country, to help them recognize their capacity to earn money locally, and to stop them thinking that marriage in China is the only way they can have a better life.
Agriculture research often focuses on technical issues and pays little attention to social and cultural contexts. This seminar enriched our understandings of the social dimensions of everyday rural lives in mountainous border areas. Agricultural research and technologies can support Hmong women’s strong desires to transform their lives, but only if we understand their real needs and interests and have appropriate approaches to introducing new technologies.
We thank the ISDS team for their support in organizing the seminar. Please find Mr Huy’s presentation, with its rich insights and detailed information, on our seminar site.
Nozomi Kawarazuka (International Potato Center)
30 January 2018
Gender in agriculture 