Mail Order Brides Business Which Lead to the Exploitation of Women - Essay Example

Mail order brides Table of contents Introduction. 2. Mail order brides business and its features. 3. The main factors of mail order brides business which lead to the exploitation of women. Case of Russia. 4. Conclusion. 1. Everybody of us tries to find her own way to personal prosperity and happiness, and personal happiness is an essential part of our desires and needs. We all want to love and to be loved, and we use different methods to find a true life and love partner. Rapid technological development can give a lot of numerous possibilities to look for a partner, and one of these ways is mail order bride business. Great amount of women around the world try to find their love in the Internet, and many of them even don't think of possible risks and problems they can meet. Many women believe that potential rich and respectable grooms from abroad will automatically provide their well-being and happiness, but these people overlook numerous facts of exploitation of women through mail order brides business. Furthermore, it is often very difficult for women to defend their rights and resolve their problems resulted from their trustfulness and aspiration for happiness. This paper will discuss the main features of mail order brides business, explain and evaluate the basic factors of mail order brides business relation to the exploitation of women. The thesis of the paper is that these factors are: geographical location, income level, education and race. 2. There are some significant features of mail order brides business which determine its unique character. One of the main features of this business is its popularity in the Internet as a good way to earn money, give and get appropriate information. In spite of severe competition at mail order brides market there is great amount of Internet services which offer and provide this business: "The international 'mail-order bride' industry has been proliferating in recent years, using the internet as a high-powered engine to reach an unprecedented number of clients. A Google search for 'mail-order brides' results in 590,000 websites, including 'The Mail-Order Bride Warehouse' (SIECUS International)". So, the business has gained mass character and is constantly developing and growing. Another feature of mail order bride business: people who use this service have many ways to hide their real image, attitude and some individual personal features which could play appropriate role for those who would be interested in contact. People try to display themselves as ideal lovers, true partners and friends who earn much money and are ready to give their potential partners love and happiness. It is rather difficult to check reliability of such individual and specific information - so, only personal meeting can help open real truth. Global scale of such activity leads to numerous facts of abusing and human rights violation, such as women and children trafficking and sex exploitation of women: "the stories of women who come to the U.S. as mail-order brides only to suffer exploitation, abuse, or murder are coming to light. As a result, the industry is facing increased scrutiny from people concerned about the implications mail-order marriages (SIECUS International)". 5. There are some important factors of mail order brides business which lead to the exploitation of women. It is possible to outline some key regions women of which are involved in mail order bride business. These regions are: third world countries (Asia, Latin America), Russia and Eastern Europe. As a rule, women from poor countries show their interest for rich European and American grooms in the Internet; and men from rich European countries, USA and Canada use this tendency: "Potential 'mail-order brides' are typically young women from countries experiencing economic distress and widespread subordination of women. Most of these women are under intense pressure to marry (SIECUS International)". So, one of this business factors is region. Women from these countries are usually obedient, pliable and undemanding. This position of third world women lead to numerous facts of exploitation of these women, and the most widespread forms of such exploitation are women and children trafficking, household exploitation and sexual abusing. In early 1990s women from poor rural regions of Russia and Ukraine became the most demanding women at mail order brides market. These women are rather smart, gentle, and warm and attract large attention of middle-class grooms from abroad, but they don't know the real situation about the life abroad: most of them are sure that they would find happiness in rich countries, and rich grooms would give them money, love and happiness, but there are a lot of different risks for Russian women (as well as for women from Asia and other regions) involved in mail order brides business: "The bride is isolated in a new foreign country, usually unable to speak the language, and often is more vulnerable to abuse. The groom takes the risk that his new wife is just using him for permanent residency status (Russian Mail Order Bride Case Study). Many people consider that education is also an important factor for women to be involved in mail order brides business. This factor works for some poor Asian and Latin American countries, but it doesn't work for Russian women. Soviet and Russian education was always on rather high level, and many women in Russia are high developed and educated. As one of Russian dating agency founders say, "Russian women have a much better education than the brides from Asia and Latin America. About 90% of the women that apply to our agency have college or university degrees, or are current college or university students (Russian Mail Order Brides Do Not Exist!)". As was already indicated above, economic development of a country and life level of women play appropriate role for mail order brides business. Women from poor countries seek for financial well-being and look for appropriate opportunities to marry a rich man from abroad. They believe that their potential husbands would love them and care for them, but often these women's dreams become crushed. In many cases their husbands begin to abuse them, and women don't know how to defend their rights abroad. For example: "Randy and Lora were married for less than six months when she filed for a protection order against him, citing ongoing physical, emotional, and economic abuse. In response to Lora's allegations, Randy's lawyer said, "there were no witnesses to his wife's allegations". Legally, this is a perfectly legitimate argument (World Wide Wedlock: Russian Mail Order Brides on the Internet)". So, women in such cases are often deprived of civil rights and are subjects of exploitation. Mail order bride business can also lead to women trafficking. Such cases are widespread among Russian, Ukrainian and Asian women who became involved in mail order bride business. Asian women are very popular among European and American men because of their obedience, delicateness and submissiveness. In addition to that, such men prefer women from Asia because of personal preferences: "Stereotypical images of Asian women within the U.S. abide by this same Orientalist discourse, placing Asian women in the categories of exotic, compliant, weak and hyper-sexual (Anjali's Paper)". So, it is possible to say that the factor of race also plays appropriate role in mail order bride business. 4. The paper has discussed mail order brides business and its features, as well as the main factors of mail order brides business which lead to the exploitation of women. Facts indicated above clearly show that these main factors are: economic situation of countries where women from; specific economic class of a specific region of mail order brides (as cases of Russia show); race and education also play role in some cases. As was underlined above, mail order bride business is rapidly growing today - so, all countries involved should pay appropriate attention to this problem and find appropriate ways for resolving it. Sources Barton J.H. World Wide Wedlock: Russian Mail Order Brides on the Internet. Women In Mind: A Feminist Journal Dedicated to All Voices. (http://www.southernct.edu/departments/womenscenter/wim/articles/mob.htm) Big Bad Chinese Mama's Creation of Asian American Feminist Community and Online Culture. Anjali's Paper. (http://www.bigbadchinesemama.com/anjali.html) Making the Connection -- News and Views on Sexuality: Education, Health and Rights. SIECUS International. Volume 3, Issue 2 - Summer 2004. (http://www.siecus.org/inter/connection/conn0048.html) Petrova E. Russian Mail Order Brides Do Not Exist! Russian Brides Cyber Guide. (http://www.womenrussia.com/mail_order_brides/) Russian Mail Order Bride Case Study. TED Case Studies. (http://www.american.edu/TED/bride.htm) Read More