Chicago: Smell the Glove

I totally (and obviously) agree with you about what happens to them after they get sold and married and all that. But I don't actually know about what their current, pre-marriage situation is. My question boils down to: Why do these women do this? And I realize they might not have much of a choice in the matter. But then I think, surely a horribly abusive situation in the U.S. offers more of a chance of escape than a horribly abusive situation in Russia?

Or do they never end up getting married off, and are just trotted out as escorts to desparate and horny Westerners? That could be the worst case scenario.

JUST ANOTHER MANIC MANDAY.

BECAUSE THEY ARE GIRLS

Not really.

Chris - the women are lied to, kidnapped, sold by their families. And it's generally easier to escape from an abusive relationship in a country where you speak and read the language, have other family or friends, know your way around, and are a legal resident than one in which you have only ever lived as a slave.

Trafficking in Human Beings: From Himalayan villages to Eastern European cities, people – especially women and girls – are attracted by the prospect of a well-paid job as a domestic servant, waitress or factory worker. Traffickers recruit victims through fake advertisements, mail-order bride catalogues and casual acquaintances.

Upon arrival at their destination, victims are placed in conditions controlled by traffickers while they are exploited to earn illicit revenues. Many are physically confined, their travel or identity documents are taken away and they or their families are threatened if they do not cooperate. Women and girls forced to work as prostitutes are blackmailed by the threat that traffickers will tell their families. Trafficked children are dependent on their traffickers for food, shelter and other basic necessities. Traffickers also play on victims’ fears that authorities in a strange country will prosecute or deport them if they ask for help.

Bill To Curtail 'Mail-Order Bride' Abuse Advances in CA: Many women find themselves victims of domestic violence after participating in largely unregulated 'International Marriage Broker' industry matchmaking.

. . .

Nationwide there have been several dozen cases of domestic violence and even murder committed against women who come to the United States as mail order brides. There are at least seven documented cases in California; many more are believed to go unreported. California is believed to have over 70 marriage brokers operating in the state.

Trafficking and sexual exploitation: Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as “mail-order brides.” In most cases these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence.

The dowry system in many countries also facilitates bride trafficking. Traffickers take advantage of poor families by promising to marry their daughters to grooms in other countries who require little or no dowry. After receiving the family’s permission to take their daughter to a foreign country, the trafficker can then force the women or child into prostitution. Sometimes, the family knowingly sells their daughter into prostitution because they are unable or unwilling to pay a dowry.

In certain areas of China, where men significantly outnumber the women, grooms pay a ‘bride price’ to the bride’s family before a marriage. This practice has created an increased demand for cheaper brides, and traffickers meet this demand by trafficking women from poorer regions of China or from other countries.

Mail-order bride systems in the United States and other Western countries also facilitate the trafficking in women and children. While many unions are legitimate, traffickers work through mail-order bride companies to bring women across international borders where they end up in sham marriages leading to prostitution or in violent and abusive relationships.

That one is long so I won't excerpt it. Just google for "mail order bride human trafficking" and if that's not enough, try "marriage brokerage human trafficking" for much more info on the topic.

Seriously, if anyone wants to hang out tonight, and just do something relaxed and cheap, give me a call. I am broke but want to have the weekend.

None of that is meant to condone mail-order brides, of course!

I hope that makes my small point, which I am at best provisional about, clear enough.

Commercial Stereotyping in the Mail-Order Bride Industry

Matchmaking organizations build their business by taking advantage of and marketing cultural stereotypes. . . . Many matchmaking websites advertise their mail-order brides (implicitly, or in some cases, explicitly) as submissive, docile, faithful and loving domesticated wives who are looking to build a traditional, old fashioned home in which they will cater to their man. It is not unlikely . . . that a man who is seeking out a submissive woman is not seeking an equal partnership, but rather a relationship of dominance and control. . . . It then becomes likely that if a wife turns out not to “live up” to the advertised standard, the husband, who was seeking control in a relationship, might turn to abuse in order force the wife to live up to that standard.

Inherent Bias Against the Mail-Order Bride: Exploitation of Conditions of Vulnerability

Informational Vulnerability

While matchmaking organizations have incentive to provide their paying male clients with “quality” brides, the incentive is much smaller for providing the prospective brides with similar information about their possible husbands, especially considering the seemingly endless supply of available brides. Matchmaking organizations commonly do not screen their male clients for past criminal records or records of domestic violence, abuse or restraining orders. . . . The industry therefore almost en masse ignores the potential repercussions of these marriages on the women, while focusing squarely on the potential repercussions of the marriages on the men, leaving the brides to be in a more vulnerable position than the grooms.

Economic Vulnerability

[H]usbands tend to come from wealthy, stable economies, while the brides originate from economically unstable or vulnerable environments. [W]hen these brides find themselves married in the first world, they are dependent economically on their husbands especially in the early days of their lives in a new country. They thus continue to face economic vulnerability and dependency until the time comes when they are able to support themselves financially.

Cultural Vulnerability

An additional bias stems from the fact that the brides enter a foreign country, a foreign culture, and a foreign community, in which few of them have any networks of support other than the husband . . . The husband, who has brought a wife into his natural environment, is by default in his comfort zone, while the wife is vulnerable to the intricacies of a culture she is not familiar with, often without the knowledge of the language.

Legal Vulnerability

In the United States, a woman arriving on a fiancée visa is to be married to her proposed fiancée within 90 days of entry (there is no legal way to extend this limit), or she is to face deportation. Upon marriage, she is granted a conditional resident status, which is again dependent on her husband, as applications are filed jointly. Again, before the expiration of the continued status, the wife and the husband must appear in court together to request removal of conditionality. Divorce cannot be an option for two years, otherwise the wife loses her immigrant status. The bride is therefore continuously placed at the mercy of her husband and lives under the constant threat of possible deportation.

Or, conversely, imagine a US woman in an abusive relationship, and think of the difficulties she has in escaping. Now imagine that she doesn't know the language, the laws, the currency, the geography...

Not to be completely frustrating, but what you've done here is shown how difficult it is for a woman to get out of an abusive situation in a foreign country, which I already knew about. What you haven't done, unless I am being totally oblivious to something, is pasted the parts that explain how it's easier to escape the abusive situation in the native country, and how a greater percentage of women escape such a situation in their native country than they do in the foreign country. That's the part that I am making uninformed assumptions about!

It's possible that that is mentioned in the article you posted, though, which I admit I haven't read yet, because I suck.

(xpost)