Dan Bauman and Elizabeth Mohr
Saint Paul Pioneer Press
🔗 ‘Open secret’ of child brides roils Twin Cities Hmong community
BY THE NUMBERS
20%
1 in 5 visas issued by the U.S. to Laos nationals were K-1 visas, or fiancee visas, in 2014. That proportion is the largest of any country; Somalia was second.
35%
According to UNICEF, 35 percent of girls in Laos are married before they turn 18 and 9 percent before they turn 15. In many African and South Asian countries, the percentage is at least 40 percent and, in some places, more than 75 percent.
34%
Nearly 34 percent of families in Laos live below the international poverty line, defined as $1.25 per day (in U.S. currency), according to UNICEF.
45%
The U.S. Embassy in Laos reviewed fiancee visas and determined 14 percent were fraudulent, according to a 2009 telegram published by Wikileaks. Lao citizens seeking to go to the U.S. from remote, rural provinces had a 45 percent fraud rate, “possibly due to a higher incidence of arranged marriages and higher polygamy levels,” the report said.
Dan Bauman 