Trafficking Internet brides

Abstract

This article critically examines the world of international marriage agencies who operate on the Internet, selling women for profit to men to buy from one end of the world to the other. It examines the relationship between capitalism and choice with coercion and misogyny, as expressed on Internet dating sites. It highlights the role governments play in facilitating trafficking of young women and girls from economic poor areas to advanced economies, arguing that states underwrite this type of violence against women and children, profiting in the process. It concludes that there is no dignity for humanity in trafficking women and girls in order to (sexually) exploit them for profit.

Keywords:

• international marriage agencies
• brides
• marriage
• the Internet
• human trafficking
• consumer capitalism
• eBay
• law enforcement

Notes

 1. Jones (2011a, p. 309) and Jones (2011b, p. 115).

 2. See Marchbank (2011, p. 323), Sahib, Koning and van Wittelstuijn (2006), Bargh and McKenna (2004), Jackson (2002), Belleau (2004), Lee (1998, p. 139).

 3. See Zittrain (2008).

 4. BBC News online (2005). eBay sales of babies is not confined to China. In 2008, an advert appeared in Canada for a six-day old baby. See The Provinces (2008).

 5. The Canadian Encyclopedia (n.d.).

 6. Match.com and Yahoo! Personals.

 7. Sahib et al. (2006, p. 61), Chun (1996), Epstein (2009, p. 61).

 8. For example, blossoms.com, goodwife.com.

 9. See Markee (2001, p. 277) for an overview about domestic violence of Russian mail-order brides in the USA.

10.  http://www.lifepartnermatchmaker.com/eaboutus.html

11.  http://www.chinesekisses.com/statistik_grafiken.php?a=laender&l=en&randm=3&randw=5

12.  http://www.thaikisses.de/statistik_grafiken.php?a=laender&l=en&randm=3&randw=5

13. E.g. http://www.blossoms.com/

14. See Clout (2009).

15. Markee (2001, p. 279).

16. ‘Craigslist’ (2008).

17.  http://www.lifepartnermatchmaker.com/eaboutus.html

18.  http://www.marryafilipina.net/

19. Chun (1996, p. 1159).

20. Ibid., p. 1163.

21.  http://www.lifepartnermatchmaker.com/eaboutus.html. The website and its service are also featured on Youtube, yet another easy advertising method that reaches millions of potential customers.

22.  http://www.blossoms.com/

23.  http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/craigslists_closure_cuts_online_sex_ads_by_ half

24. For the USA, see Mobydeen (2004).

25. Virgin brides off the shelf (2009).

26.  http://www.lifepartnermatchmaker.com/eaboutus.html

27. TIP Report (2009).

28. Williams (2010, pp. 85–94).

29. Reilly (2006, p. 90).

30. The Not-for-Sale campaign believes that it is around 27 million per year. Retrieved from http://www.notforsalecampaign.org

31. Retrieved from http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/unodc-report-on-human-trafficking-exposes-modern-form-of-slavery-.html

32. Republic Act 6955 or the Anti-Mail-Order Bride Law of 1990. See Hillblom (2001).

33. See Del Vecchio (2007–2008). See also Markee (2001) and Mobydeen (2004).

34. United Nations (2000). The Section 3 definition has been used in the Council of Europe Convention on Trafficking, Section 4. See below.

35. Notable current examples are indigenous Canadian women and girls trafficked from their reservations to large cities in Canada and the USA, or aborigines and Maoris taken from their communities to large cities in Australia and New Zealand.

36. See http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?it_id=374&it=document

37. Council Framework Decision on combating trafficking in human beings 2002 (2002/629/JHA).

38. Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA of 22 December 2003 on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, OJ L 13, pp. 44–48.

39. Proposal for Council Framework Decision on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting victims COM 2009/136 (which will repeal the 2002 Decision).

40. COM 2009/135 (repealing the 2004 Decision).

41. Child trafficking in the EU – challenges, perspectives and good practices, available from the FRA website.

42. Costa (2009).

43. Freeman (2005).

44. Lim (1998, p. vi).

45. Quoted in Jeffreys (2009, p. 5).

46. Ibid.

47. See Pateman (1988).

48. Jeffreys (2009, p. 6).

49. See Meng (1995) and Yehl (2001).

50. Epstein (2009, p. 83).

51. Schaeffer-Grabiel (2006), cited in Jeffreys (2009, p. 48).

52. Bourdieu (2001, pp. 1–2).

53. This compares with the attention paid to and large number of convictions of men who pray on children via the Internet for sex, rather than for marriage. See, for example, Blake (2005); see also Lee (1998, p. 140), Munro and Della Giusta (2008), and Kapur (2005).

54. See Amiel (2006) and Brocato (2004).

55. Jones (2004).