Cambodia re-allows S. Korean men to marry Cambodian women+

PHNOM PENH, April 27 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Cambodia has lifted its suspension of processing of marriages between South Korean men and Cambodian women after revising its marriage regulations in an effort to prevent human trafficking, a government official said Tuesday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong told Kyodo News his ministry has notified all foreign embassies in Phnom Penh of the new marriage regulations that require a foreign man wanting to marry a Cambodian woman to be present with her in Cambodia during all stages of the marriage process.

The temporary suspension was announced last month for fear that Cambodian girls from the countryside were still being trafficked as prospective brides for foreign men, South Koreans in particular.

In 2008, Cambodia issued a similar temporary suspension on international marriage processing but it applied to all marriages with foreign men, not specifically those involving South Korean men.

That move followed a report by the International Organization for Migration that warned about networks of brokers or matchmaking businesses that had been arranging "fake, deceitful" marriages to bring Cambodian women to foreign places like Taiwan or South Korea to work as housemaids or prostitutes.

The report said from 2004 through 2007, some 2,500 Cambodian women had married South Korean men through brokers, while a Cambodian fact- finding mission sent to Taiwan in 2007 showed that 5,219 Cambodian women were living there, some of whom had been trafficked outright and many of whom claimed they had endured abuse.