Interracial marriages edge down in 2010

SEOUL, July 31 (Yonhap) -- Interracial marriages in South Korea declined in 2010 from the previous year due mainly to a drop in the number of Korean-Chinese women tying the knot with men here, government data showed Sunday. According to the data by Statistics Korea, interracial marriages numbered 34,235 cases last year, or 10.5 percent of total marriages in the country. The percentage was down slightly from 10.8 percent in 2009. Since 2000, the portion of interracial marriages in South Korea had been rising fast, but the number began to lose ground after peaking at 11.7 percent in 2006. The ratio declined to 10.9 percent in 2007 but increased to 11 percent in 2008 before dropping again a year later. The Emergency Center for Migrant Women, an advocacy group for foreign women living in South Korea, attributed the downturn largely to a 2007 government measure to allow ethnic Koreans in China and former Russia to get jobs here more easily. "The move has resulted in a sharp drop in the number of Korean-Chinese women who enter South Korea to marry South Korean men," a center official said. "Also responsible were several unsavory incidents that happened to multicultural families." In May this year, a Vietnamese woman was killed by her South Korean husband in a rural South Korean town. In July last year, another Vietnamese woman was killed by her mentally ill South Korean husband just eight days after she arrived here to live with him.