Nationality and Identity in Regulation of International Marriage Migration in Southeast and East Asia: Children As Pawns of the State?

Abstract

The prevalent issue of marriage migration between (mostly) women from Southeast Asian ‘sending’ countries and men in ‘receiving’ countries in East Asia gives rise to many socio-legal issues about identity and nationality. Since the 1990s, the phenomenon of international marriage migration (‘IMM’) to more developed countries in the region has led to changes in laws and policies on nationality. By examining IMM through the lens of nationality and belonging, it becomes clear that it is ‘a critical project for the nation-state’, which includes both ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ countries. In the literature, IMM is often described as a transnational phenomenon, which highlights both the cross border and regulatory aspects of IMM, but which risks conflating IMM with human trafficking. In this paper I focus on nationality and identity in the context of IMM. I do so to highlight principles of international law, and the role of the nation-states in the region as international, regional and domestic actors.