A 36-year-old Vietnamese woman in Singapore was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for polygamy, which is punishable by law.
According to Lent.az, citing foreign media, the woman confessed that she concealed her crime and the fact that she had a child, providing false information to immigration officials.
The case concerns Nguyen Thi Phuong Thuy, who married a 54-year-old Singapore citizen in 2008 when she was 19 years old. There was an age difference of 35 years between the couple, and the official marriage was registered in Singapore.
Around 2012, Nguyen allegedly returned to Vietnam for medical treatment. There, she met another man, a Vietnamese citizen three years older than herself, and began a romantic relationship with him. During this time, she primarily lived in Vietnam.
Although both knew that Nguyen was already married in Singapore and could not marry again there, the couple decided to register their marriage in Vietnam. This occurred on July 28, 2015, when Nguyen was already pregnant with the second husband's child.
Afterwards, Nguyen stayed in Vietnam and only traveled to Singapore to renew her long-term visa. In 2016, she returned to Singapore to divorce her first husband. Their marriage was officially dissolved on November 3, 2017. Her second marriage in Vietnam ended on March 9, 2018.
The court documents do not show how the authorities became aware of the polygamy. The prosecution insisted on a three-month prison sentence.
During the hearing, Nguyen, without a lawyer, addressed the court through an interpreter and was in tears. She explained that she is the sole mother of a 10-year-old boy who requires full-time care. She also noted that the child's father is partially paralyzed and her elderly mother is the family's financial and emotional supporter.
The judge stated that he would take the circumstances of the case into account and imposed a lighter sentence than what the prosecution requested. According to Singapore law, polygamy is punishable by up to seven years in prison, a fine, or both.
