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Mail order brides discussed
 Media Credit: Leslie Andres/News Editor Elsa Batica, founder and president of Batica & Associates, speaks to audience Wednesday about �Mail Order Brides: Fact or Fantasy� at the Atwood Little Theater. Batica, who was speaking as part of the Women on Wednesday series, has been featured in the Star Tribune and WCCO Channel 4 on the same subject.
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Do mail order brides come to the U.S. for love or for a better life?
In the weekly series Women on Wednesday, Elsa Batica presented Mail Order Brides: Facts or Fantasy.
Batica is the founder and president of Batica & Associates, an international management consulting firm focusing on human resources capacity building, education and training, and multicultural diversity. She was featured in a "Mail Order Brides �Politics and Domestic Violence" article in the Star Tribune and on WCCO Channel 4. Batica is also the former executive director of the Asian American Renaissance and the program director for the institute of Cultural Affairs in Cebu, the Philippines.
Batica has researched and been involved with the counseling of mail order brides in the United States since 1986. She began when some friends at the hospital in the Twin Cities, where she lives, called her at 3 a.m. She was needed to translate for a girl who was believed to be Filipina, like Batica herself. It was then that Batica found out that mail order brides existed and the dark world that surrounded the women involved.
"Hundreds of women of various ages and backgrounds do this," Batica said. "Most women have no clue of the dangers involved."
Recently, according to Batica, the Immigration and Naturalization Service launched a study into mail order brides. The findings astonished those listening to Batica.
According to the INS, the mail order bride business is also known as the International Matchmaking Organization (IMO). It is a legal entity that does business for the profit of dating, matrimonial or associate services between two clients across international borders. In the U.S. alone, the mail order bride business has "mushroomed in the last 20 years," according to Batica.
Every year, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 U.S. men find wives through the catalog services. There is no known exact number of brides entering the US. There are substantial profits for the companies involved.
Most often, according to Batica, the brides find themselves in abusive relationships, which are often fraudulent. Those brides who do arrive in the U.S. are often ignorant of the laws surrounding immigration and believe the threats made by their husbands that they will be "deported if they don't obey." The rate of marriage fraud between a U.S. citizen and a foreigner is at least 8 percent.
Lately, according to Batica, there is a growing concern regarding the global trafficking of women and girls. However, not all mail order brides are considered as trafficked. Being that the business of cataloging women for international relationships is not illegal, it becomes difficult to draw a line as to where it becomes illegal. While there have been many attempts to regulate the industry, it is hard to do.
According to Batica, the idea of mail order brides is not new to the U.S. The practice still exists in some cultures, and are in fact customary. Mail order brides are not limited to the U.S. alone.
Western Europe, Canada and Australia have also seen the IMO activity.
"It is part of North American history, stemming from arranged marriages," Batica said.
In the process of applying for a mail order bride, "the husband holds all the cards." The women are told virtually nothing about the male customer, only what he provides. The ads often advertise "seeking one special woman." The rest is to satisfy that need.
After a man responds to the ad, correspondence takes place until he chooses to meet her. Some IMO's set up packaged tours to the foreign countries to meet a wide selection of women.
The men who purchase these women are financially secure, but seek a woman from a poor country because it makes him look more attractive to her. Once she arrives, she must marry him within 90 days and apply for citizenship or she will be deported.
"The women are purchased like cars � if it doesn't work out, they want their money back," said Batica.
The Department of Justice is actively investigating and prosecuting the international cases where they apply. However, each year, more than one million people seek assistance regarding battering and domestic violence injuries.
So why do these women do it?
Many of these women live in emerging or turbulent countries where jobs and education for women and girls are little. The movies make American men look like the perfect game. The opportunity to leave the country looks twice as tempting, to be able to leave and pursue their dreams.
"The Hollywood screen portrays America as the land of gold and honey," Batica said.
Often there is a push from home to support the family. By being married she relieves the strain at home. The woman is often searching for a better life.
"The perception of American men, by the women, is that they make good husbands," Batica said. "That the men are faithful to their wives.
That the American men are like 'movie stars.' The men perceive the women (as having) traditional values. The American woman is not seen as traditional. These brides are homemakers. That all they want is to be a wife."
Most of the marriages are fraudulent. According to Batica's findings most marriages are in name only, based solely on the immigration benefits.
Approximately 4,000 to 6,000 marriages in the U.S. involve international services. Of the women who were contacted by the INS, there were 1,400 Asian women. At least 70 percent were from the Philippines and another 16 percent form Indonesia, with the rest coming from Thailand, Japan, China and Korea. Not all mail order brides are Asian. Others come from the former Soviet Union. The average ages for the women were 16 to 20, followed by 21 to 25.
In Minnesota alone last year, 85 percent of the immigrants were fianc�e visas. However, not all fianc�e visas are mail order brides, some are relationships that evolved out of international students or otherwise.
The men who order brides are generally white, with at least two years of college education.
"Most of the men have control in mind and this is where the conflict occurs," Batica said.
While there is no national figure on abusive international relationships, it is believed to be very high. One man in Seattle killed his wife after she tried to file for divorce, saying he wanted his money back. The first case in which Batica was involved, the woman had been thrown out her third-floor apartment window by her husband.
"Most women have no clue of the dangers," Batica said.
Nissa Billmyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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