> Interesting read...
> Original source:http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2388273,00.html
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------
>
> Serbs want to import brides
> 04/09/2008 21:42  - (SA)
>
> Boris Babic
>
> Belgrde - A proposal to bring 100 000 south-east Asian brides to
> Serbia for bachelors, particularly those living in backward rural
> areas, has caused outrage, surprise and laughter.
>
> Labour and Welfare Minister Rasim Ljajic had to apologise to the
> public after the state secretary in his ministry, Zeljko Vasiljevic,
> said Serbia would benefit by bringing in women from "Laos, Burma,
> Cambodia and Vietnam."
>
> The number of Serbs is dwindling by 30&nsp;000 each year, the women
> disinterested in bearing children and men interested in emigrating
> westward instead of farming so something "must urgently be done,"
> Vasiljevic said.
>
> "There (in Asia) they already live on $2 a day. Here it's economic
> heaven for them," Vasiljevic said. "They're Buddhists and that's a
> peaceful faith similar to (Serbian) Orthodoxy, they're traditionally
> loyal to the state they live in and are hard-working."
>
> Negative birth rate
>
> With a view to the "250 000 bachelors in Serbia," home to 7.5 million
> people, the former war veteran particularly stressed that "those women
> nurture the cult of children and we could in five years have 300 000
> newborns."
>
> While Serbia had about 135 000 women more than men in the 15-60 age
> group in the 2002 census, the problem of a negative birth rate remains
> a thorn in the side particularly of nationalists.
>
> After all, in Kosovo, the Serbian heartland province which declared
> independence in February, the majority Albanians reproduce at the
> highest rate in Europe.
>
> Unlike "spoiled Serbian boys don't seek out regular girls, but gawk at
> silicone dolls for parties and showing off," as a columnist said in
> Thursday's edition of the daily Politika, the Albanians have no
> problems with emptying villages.
>
> In Serbia, "when boys turn 40, they suddenly remember children and
> start looking for girls - machines for cooking and bearing kids," said
> the columnist, sociologist Slobodan Antonic.
>
> Antonic says the Vasiljevic project, "briefed on 15 and elaborated on
> 120 pages," stirred a vigorous debate on Serbian internet forums,
> where boys support Vasiljevic's plan as something to teach arrogant
> Serbian girls a lesson.
>
> In return, women complain of "infantile boys," disinterested in
> marriage and children, so maybe with Asian girls we can import Cuban
> boys and teach everybody some sense," Antonic said.
>
> Vasiljevic, meanwhile, though obviously disappointed, said his project
> was not a ministry effort but his own, adding he was shelving it
> "until a better time." Ljajic said he was helpless to discipline his
> subordinate owing to the complex ruling coalition deal.
>
> His idea, however, reflects a real problem worrying not just Serbs but
> others in the region too.