Will New Jersey's Tougher Regs on Mail Order Brides Prevent Trafficking?

Garden state traffickers hoping to exploit women through mail order bride and au pair services might want to pack up and move. That's because New Jersey is implementing a new, tough law to protect foreign-born women from exploitation by unscrupulous services. Criminal background checks will be required of everyone operating an international marriage broker agency or service which brings women to the U.S. to work as nannies or maids. And that includes those agencies already operating in the state. Jersey 1, Traffickers 0.

Why would New Jersey seek to regulate these sorts of international agencies? Because there is both a huge potential for abuses and a record of human trafficking through mail order bride and au pair agencies. Both types of agencies bring women, often very young women, to the U.S. to live or work with people who are complete strangers. Many times these women have no support systems in the U.S., and are thus vulnerable to abuse from the families they live with or the agents who brought them. And to make matters trickier, there are legitimate au pair agencies which provide great experiences for young women looking to earn money and see the world. But how do you tell the legitimate from the illegitimate? That's where this new law steps in.

While criminal background checks are a step in the right direction, I'm not sure they're everything needed to effectively prevent trafficking and exploitation or assist women in abusive situations.

Ideally, we would develop a means of communicating to women coming into the U.S. on fiance visas or for short-term, au pair work that they have places to go if their situation is bad. Making sure women understand the laws in the U.S. and the availability of help if they need it will do a lot more to allow them to leave exploitative situations. Perhaps information given out at customs? Or a mandate that the agencies provide such information? Whatever gets that knowledge to the people who need it.

For the most part, I put the onus of education and change on the part of the people doing the trafficking and abusing, but in this case targeted victim education can be incredibly useful. Especially when dealing with situations based on relationships or marriage, sometimes these cases are almost impossible to identify unless the victim steps forward. And some victims are reluctant to leave even an exploitative situation if they don't know whether or not they'll be deported. The knowledge of available services at least provides victims of illegitimate mail order bride or au pair services tools to help them get out.

Photo credit: megyarsh