Canada – Mail Order Brides Face Exploitation in Canada – Research

VANCOUVER, CANADA – Nika thought her future was bright when she
came to Canada from the Philippines as a bride to the owner of a booming
taxi business.

She was following in the footsteps of her sister, Nela, who had herself
immigrated as a mail-order bride and was living comfortably with her
husband and two young children.

But soon after Nika arrived thanks to the sponsorship of her husband
Tom, things began to fall apart. For one, she learned she was his fifth
wife.

He beat her, restricted her right to use the phone, stopped sending
money to her family and even controlled her diet.

Nika fled to a transition house after a month.

A new study by Simon Fraser University’s Jen Marchbank says the
scenario is not unique. Mail-order brides coming to Canada have little
knowledge of their rights and face exploitation at the hands of
unscrupulous husbands.

And the business in Canada is thriving, thanks in part  to the
Internet.

She details the situation Mail Order Brides: Causes, Experiences, and
Policy Responses in North America.

Many of the problems such women face in Canada come as a result of
changes to this country’s marriage laws as they relate to immigrants.

“Unlike many U.S. states, the industry is unregulated in Canada,” says
Marchbank. “In this country, there are no specific rules to control
agencies, which work transnationally, and no specific provisions to ensure
that brides know their rights.”

Recent changes in Canadian marriage law regarding common-law
spouses could also have implications.

“This might aid unscrupulous men in deceiving women into entry to
Canada with a promise of marriage — then not being able to leave the man
without threat of deportation.”

The Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act changed the definition of a spouse in 2001 so that certain
common-law marriages are recognized under the family section of
immigration rules.

Under those rules, a woman can come to Canada as a common-law spouse
without being married elsewhere. That, however, puts a women at the mercy
of her husband.
Should the relationship fail, she could be
deported.

“Before, for anyone to enter Canada, they had to be married overseas
prior to coming to Canada and their marriage had to be a marriage that
would be recognized under Canadian law,” Marchbank said.

The situation has caught the attention of Canada’s Green Party, which
has been busy expanding the depth of its platform beyond environmental
issues. The Greens are calling for changes to the laws permitting mail
order brides.

Party Leader Elizabeth May says the situation is akin to “human
trafficking.”

May said women coming from countries outside of western cultures suffer
due to their lack of language skills and support systems.

“All the more so in this particular group where women come in,
potentially as mail-order brides without any support and are subject to
abuse,” May said. “We’ve heard about situations where it’s really not a
marriage; it’s actually sexual exploitation.”

Marchbank said mail-order bride situations are generally only heard
about when something goes wrong. They get media coverage when women seek
out social work or legal services. The successful ones never make
headlines.

There are, however, other reasons why those in mail-order marriages
might not come forward.

“The very title `mail-order bride’ (is) pejorative,” Marchbank said.
“Why would a couple want to put themselves up and say this is what we did
because there are so many stereotypes around this that women are always
victims and the men are somehow lacking in something because they couldn’t
get a Canadian woman to marry them.

“It has a lot of cultural myth around it and stereotypes around
it.”  
  
There’s no good data on how many
mail-order brides there are in Canada, Marchbank said. Most arrive through
the family section of federal immigration policy.

The practice has become an option for third-world women due to the
structure of immigration into Canada.

In some cases, mail order marriages are “easier for these women than to
meet the education and qualification standards required by Canada’s
immigration laws,” Marchbank said.

The growth of the business can be traced to the explosion of the
Internet in recent years – and the cost-effectiveness of running a
website. They’re cheap to keep updated and simpler to manage than paper
catalogues.

It’s estimated there could be as many as 10,000 Internet sites
worldwide offering mail-order brides. One such site listed 128
countries.

“It is a commodification of women,” Marchbank said, “This is about
women as a commodity to be purchased. This is to me very much about
international inequalities in economics.”

But, she adds: “These women are making choices. They are not just
victims. Many of these women are making choices about their lives. They
may be making very restrictive choices compared to women in the West but
they are making choices.”