South Korea has emerged as one of the world’s top destinations for Vietnamese brides, with around 40,000 currently living in the East Asian country.

International marriages between South Korean men and Vietnamese women have increased exponentially since the mid-2000s with Vietnamese women seeking a comfortable life and economic opportunity abroad.

But married life is doesn’t always live up to expectations, with statistics showing that one in five Vietnamese-Korean couples file for divorce.

Vietnamese Korean marriages are often set up through marriage agencies or through friends and family, with couples often meeting only once before tying the knot.

For some women, the lack of knowledge about their partners has ended up to be deadly.

A series of high profile murders and cases of domestic violence towards Vietnamese brides have come to light, most recently June this year, when a Vietnamese woman was murdered by her South Korean father in law after an argument.

According to government and non government organisations in South Korea, migrant women are particularly at risk to domestic violence in the country.

As of 2013, the largest group of marriage migrants in the country have been Vietnamese women, with Chinese women, ethnic Korean women from China, Japanese, Filipino and Cambodian women as the largest groups following.