There, they were sold to the syndicate for 5,000 Chinese yuan (600 U.S. dollars) each.

''These guys all are very young (from 19 to 23), but have wicked hearts. The ringleader, Dao Ngoc Dun, is evil enough to sell his two 'lovers' '', reported VietnamNet, an on-line news portal.

It is by no means a secret that Vietnamese women are being sold or going to China as brides. But the latest reports still came as a shock to many.

For instance, local newspapers reported in March that young Vietnamese girls were displayed as 'brides' at a trade fair in Singapore.

The 'Thanh Nien' daily translated a Mar. 14 article carried by the Singapore paper 'Today' describing how Vietnamese women were ''put on display'' like products at a trade fair booth at the Golden Mile Complex in Singapore.

The booth was set up by "Blissful Heart Marriage Centre", and according to director Francis Toh, the ''Vietnamese were there to give potential clients an idea how Vietnamese girls look and give them a feel of the on-the-spot selection process''.

A Singaporean man was seen distributing leaflets to passers-by, promoting luxury cruise packages costing 13,800 Singapore dollars (8,365 U.S. dollars). For an extra 9,800 Singapore dollars (5,940 U.S. dollars), a single man buying a luxury cruise could choose a bride on the spot to accompany him on his trip.

''It was like a TV advertisement and it was so humiliating,'' the 'Thanh Nien' daily quoted a Vietnamese working at a computer firm in Singapore as telling the newspaper.

In recent years, an increasing number of Singapore men, unable to find love at home, have been seeking brides in countries like Vietnam, China and Indonesia.

Quynh Mai, who runs a hotel business in Singapore, said that Vietnamese women were also put on display in other places like the Fulushou and Orchard Point trading centres.

Braema Mathi, president of Singapore's Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), said: ''I think putting women from any country up like this, almost advertising themselves as brides, is repugnant.''

Marrying Vietnamese women has become in the last decade a golden opportunity also for Taiwanese and Chinese men who due to their poor social status are finding it difficult to find wives in their home countries.

Taiwanese government officials say there are now more than 250,000 foreign women married to Taiwanese men and at least one in nine marriages on the island is mixed. In the first half of 2004 alone, there were as many as 5,689 Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men, according to the Taiwan Office of Economics and Culture here.

Taiwan-based dating companies often send potential grooms to Ho Chi Minh City. Here, they would be able choose their brides from dozens of girls from the countryside who want to be married to foreigners.

In China, the trade in Vietnamese women is driven largely by the tens of millions of bachelors in China, usually farmers unable to find brides due to factors that include a gender imbalance in China, which has led to a shortage of brides, as well inability to have adequate dowry.

For their part, Vietnamese women, seeking an escape from poverty, are often lured into China by fake promises of jobs or good marriages.

''Because there is demand, there will be supply,'' said social worker Tran Thu Huong.

In the past five years, more than 30,000 people have been prosecuted in Vietnam on charges of trafficking in women and children, with traffickers jailed up to 20 years.

But sociologist Tran Hong Van cautions against generalising and argues that Vietnamese have agreed to marry foreigners to escape poverty and misfortune. ''They are volunteers, and thus could hardly be considered as victims of an international trade in women." (END/Copyright IPS)