Human Trafficking and International Marriage Brokers

Editor's Note: Special thanks to the Tahirih Justice Center, experts on the potential for abuse and exploitation through the international marriage broker industry, for providing the background information for my comments here.  You can read more about their great work protecting women and girls at www.tahirih.org.

Recently, Change.org community members rallied together and successfully asked Diners Club to stop financing mail order brides.  This was a great victory because of the incredible potential of abuse and trafficking of women through international marriage broker (IMB) and mail order bride agencies.  A woman recruited by an IMB is particularly susceptible to abuse for many reasons: she has less opportunity to get to know her future husband personally, she may not know her rights, she may not speak much English, her husband may expect her to be submissive, her husband may feel like her owns her since he paid for her, and her dependence on her husband for immigration status and financial support may keep her trapped in a violent relationship.

Fortunately, in 2006, we got the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) to help protect women who use IMBs from becoming trapped in trafficking or domestic violence.  IMBRA provides foreign fiancés/spouses with information about the violent criminal history of their American fiancés/spouses and the rights and resources available to domestic violence victims to help them make informed decisions.  It also prevents IMBs from advertising minors.  What IMBRA doesn't prevent is law-abiding people from marrying whomever they choose; it instead empowers women to make informed choices and prevents serial predators from using international marriage as a way to lure victims.

IMBRA doesn't regulate even-playing-field services like Match.com, because IMBs' profit model and marketing practices uniquely place women at greater risk for abuse. The economic motivation to satisfy the American male who is the paying client, without regard for the safety of the non-paying foreign female recruit, who is typically from a poor or economically depressed country, simply does not exist with other types of services that do not profit from the satisfaction of only one party.

One of the things I find most upsetting about these IMBs is the blatant objectification and racism that they use to sell women.  Many frame women as objects, using phrases like "satisfaction guaranteed", "add Olga to my order", and compare the process to "ordering a pizza." Here are some examples of racist quotes from real websites:

"Women from Asia are feminine. They are normally petite and slender with delicate bone structure...Women from Asia value marriage. They do not believe in divorce. They marry for life... Husband and children never take second place to her career." (http://www.heart-of-asia.com/gen/whyasia.html)

"[Russian women] are much more patient and can tolerate things that Western women will never be able to bear. ... Another important difference is that Russian women (and Russians in general) have very low self-esteem." (http://www.womenrussia.com/faq.htm#husbands)

To say that all Asian women choose family over their career is racist and unfair to the many hardworking, career-focused Asian women in the world trying to be recognized for their achievements.  And to market a woman as "having low self-esteem"?  That to me is nauseating and unacceptable.  IMBs pose not only a danger to individual women who use them, but they objectify and degrade women as a whole.

Image from current.com