If the Ministry of Justice gets its way, marriage interviews for Vietnamese-foreigner couples.

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The ministry plans to add the new rule to its draft guidelines for the Law on Civil Registration that are expected to take effect next January, according to Thanh Nien.

“Under current laws, when applying for a marriage certificate, Vietnamese citizens are subject to being questioned by officials about their knowledge regarding their foreign partner's background, including family and home culture and laws…In case they fail to answer the questions, their partners have to go through a similar interview which, if necessary, can be conducted through an interpreter appointed by Vietnamese authorities,” wrote the paper.

The move comes after officials were unable show that the conversations were successful in preventing marriage fraud.

In its proposal to the government, the ministry claimed that local governments have complained that interviews have been undermined by “incompetence” and “misconduct.” It added that there are already strong checks in place in foreign countries that render local interviews redundant.

When the issue was raised at a meeting in Hanoi last Friday, many praised the proposal though some were less enthusiastic. A representative from Long An said that the interviews are “very important” and that his province had rejected 23 out of 196 marriage applications this year as a result of foreigners failing to pass such interviews.

From 2008 – 2010, 300,000 Vietnamese women married foreigners and that number has increased year-over-year, according to Dang The Hung, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs.

[Photo via Globaltraining]