For decades, women from the Vietnamese island of Tan Loc, located on the Mekong River in the country's southwest, have been marrying Taiwanese men and moving abroad as they seek a more stable life, helping to boost the local economy in the river delta. But it's a choice that has come at a cost to some of their children.
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00:00Along the Mekong River in southwestern Vietnam sits Tan Loc, a 3,200-hectare island that's
00:10home to over 29,000 people.
00:13Once known as the Sweet Island for its exports of sugarcane, it's now come to bear a different
00:19name, Taiwan Island, as many women here marry Taiwanese men in the hopes of a better life.
00:27At that time, many women married in foreign countries, especially in Taiwan.
00:34They were exploited and bankrupt, so they had no source of income.
00:39Some families were bankrupt and in debt.
00:43So the women married in foreign countries were there to solve their problems and to
00:51provide for their families.
00:54These marriages have helped change the island, with many residents now able to afford brick
01:00homes instead of the previous thatch-roofed shacks with money from foreign in-laws.
01:06Over the years, rates of overseas marriages in Vietnam have also been boosted by online
01:11matchmaking services, but not all these unions end happily.
01:16Some Vietnamese women living in Taiwan with their husbands face financial and marital
01:21problems, with some forced to send their children back home.
01:28Middle schooler Chan was brought back to Tanlock from Taiwan by her parents, to be raised instead
01:34by her grandparents.
01:36She's one of what's believed to be over 1,000 unregistered children sent from overseas back
01:43to the Southeast Asian country.
01:51I miss my parents very much.
01:55As a Taiwanese citizen, Chan cannot be naturalized as Vietnamese, nor can she officially enroll
02:01at the local school, leaving her in legal limbo and deprived of a formal education.
02:07There are many cases like that.
02:09It takes about 20 to 30 weeks to register.
02:18Tanlock may seem like a different place to what it once was, economically lifted by its
02:24women who crossed borders for a better life.
02:27But many of those who left have sent their children back to grow up without them, only
02:32to have them also learn what it's like to dream of life beyond the Mekong Delta.
02:38Ysen Pan and Joyce Sen for Taiwan Plus.