Degrees of Statelessness Interviews with family respondents (rather than the returned mothers) utilised a questionnaire style survey, accompanied by short interviews for each respondent to capture both quantitative and qualitative information regarding the nationality status of the children of returned marriage migrants. The findings presented below reflect important confirmation of our initial hypothesis that the children of marriage migrants will soon become an important group of interest within statelessness scholarship. C The Four Categories of Children of Returned Marriage Migrants We have identified the following four categories or groups of children of returned marriage migrants in the Can Tho region who may fall within the spectrum of de facto stateless: children with Vietnamese nationality; children with foreign nationality; children with two nationalities; and children who are undocumented. Typically, children from all four categories will be left by their mothers with relatives in a village or community which is far from administrative centres. The mothers then move to urban areas to secure employment. A recent article in the Vietnamese press highlights some of the issues affecting Vietnamese mothers and their children that follow the breakup of foreign marriages. It refers to ‘many children who have foreign names and nationality in the Mekong Delta area, whose mothers brought them home after “broken nuptials”’. It points out that: In Vietnam, the children apparently have no chance to be close to their fathers and neither their mothers who often leave the hometown to find jobs in other localities. 67 As we outline further below, our findings suggest a correlation between de facto statelessness and a lack of permanent registration under the household registration or ho khao system in Vietnam. There are concerns about how their legal status is determined under Vietnamese nationality laws and in practice, and the long-term consequences of this. Although, for the most part, younger children are able to attend primary school and obtain access to basic health care, this is the result of ad hoc policy decisions at the provincial level, as noted below. At present, there is no national policy concerning the children of returned marriage migrants and, as outlined below, there are gaps in the existing legal framework concerning the determination of their legal status within Vietnam. 1 Children with Vietnamese Nationality Whilst Vietnam’s nationality laws deal with the nationality of the children of socalled ‘mixed’ marriages in several respects, 68 the provisions are unlikely to assist children of returned marriage migrants in the scenarios we describe. 67 68 ‘Vietnam Brides in Legal Trouble after Broken Marriages with Chinese, Koreans’, (Tuoi Tre News, 14 August 2014) <http://tuoitrenews.vn/features/21628/vietnam-brides-in-legaltrouble-in-broken-marriages-with-chinese-koreans> (emphasis added). Article 3(2) Law on Marriage and Family 2014 (No 52/2014/QH13, 2014) (Vietnam) defines ‘marriage and family relations involving foreign elements’ to mean a ‘marriage and family relation in which at least one partner is a foreigner or an overseas Vietnamese or in which partners are Vietnamese citizens but the bases for establishing, changing or terminating that relation are governed by a foreign law, or that relation arises abroad or the property related to that relation is located abroad’. 81