At the same time I have seen SEA workers brought to these countries as contract workers (maids, laborers, etc). It might depend on a form of contract and choosing the right legal ways to achieve your goal. There is no such thing as unachievable goal, no matter the laws, etc.
Can't she just travel to your country as a tourist (without mentioning relationships with you) and then just keep staying there with you? You're gonna take care of her anyway. Why can't she live there without any govt approval status? Or as alternative, you may try to find a company in your country which runs the business of hiring foreign workers from SEA, as maids, nurses, etc. And let her slip in through this gap. There are always some ways, we need to learn to think out of the box.
If someone would ever decided to write a movie script where the whole planet and especially governments underwent some kind of distant mental impairment by some alien forces or similar (underworld entities? make your pick), and slowly but steadily went completely mad, they would hardly come up with a better scenario than the one which is going on right now. I seriously worry that something bad is happening to the mental abilities of people who had misfortune of taking up the government job.