”Deciding to separate” as soon as they obtained citizenship... Divorce is the goal even before marriage? = Korean report

Last year, the number of divorces between Korean men and foreign women in South Korea decreased slightly compared to the previous year, but the number of divorces between Korean men and Vietnamese women increased by the largest amount in 13 years.
There have been a series of cases of women obtaining Vietnamese citizenship through marriage, then divorcing and then remarrying Vietnamese men, bringing the issue of "sham marriages for the purpose of obtaining Vietnamese citizenship" back to the fore.
According to the 2024 Marriage Statistics released by the Statistics Korea on the 25th, the number of divorces between Korean and foreign couples will be 6,000, down 100 from the previous year (6,100), or 1.4%.
The number of divorces between Korean men and foreign women was 4,200, the same level as the previous year. Of the divorces between Korean men and foreign women, there were 1,402 between Korean men and Chinese women, and 33.
The number of cases was the highest at 2%, but it was down 97 cases, or 6.5%, from the previous year. Meanwhile, Korean men and Vietnamese women came in second with 1,215 cases, up 93 cases, or 8.3%, from the previous year. This increase rate was the highest since 2015.
It is noteworthy that some Vietnamese women who have acquired Korean nationality often remarry Vietnamese men after getting divorced.
Last year, there were a total of 771 marriages between Korean women and Vietnamese men, down 2.1% from the previous year, and of those, 728 cases (94.4%) were remarriages.
The Statistics Bureau said that this phenomenon is due to an increase in Korean men's affection for relatively young Vietnamese women, leading to a series of international marriages and resulting in the acquisition of Vietnamese citizenship.
Currently, in order for a foreigner to obtain Korean citizenship, they must either reside in Korea for more than two years while married, or have a domicile in Korea for more than one year after being married for three years.
Meanwhile, international marriages between Korean men and Japanese women also hit a record high since 2015. Last year, there were a total of 1,176 marriages between Korean men and Japanese women, a 40% increase from 2022.
Analysis shows that exchanges between the people of Japan and South Korea, which had been shrinking due to the boycott of Japanese products, have gradually recovered, and marriages, especially among young people, have increased.