The Malaysian Chinese Association is warning its members against taking foreign wives, including from Indonesia.
Datuk Michael Chong, head of the MCA’s public services and complaints department, was quoted by Malaysian newspaper The Sun as saying that the advice had been spurred after a number of foreign wives kidnapped their Malaysian children and returned to their home countries permanently.
“From 2009 till now, I have come across 13 cases where the men complained that their wives took their children to their villages and didn’t come back,” he was quoted as saying. “Efforts to contact their wives were also futile as they have switched off their phones. They cannot be traced,” Chong said.
He said that the number of such incidents was increasing, with six incidents in 2009 and seven already so far this year.
Chong, according The Star newspaper, said statistics showed that some 10 percent of such foreign wives who returned to their home countries with the children had refused to come back to the husbands.
“Two men came back after getting badly beaten up by the locals there. Even the embassies cannot help much. They [embassy officials] can’t go to these villages either. They are helpless,” he told The Sun.
Chong told the Sun that the women, who are in their early 20s, are usually from Vietnam, Indonesia and China and their Malaysian husbands are usually in their late 30s and above. Some of them have been married for less than two years.
Chong also handed out some advice, saying that if the women wanted to take their children back to their hometowns on the pretext of having a holiday, then the husbands should accompany them.
Or, he said, do not apply for a passport for the child.
He said many of the victims had met their wives through match-making agencies.
“Don’t take a foreign wife. There are many pretty, talented and intelligent Malaysian women to choose from,” he added.
