Filipina brides online? Beware
Filipina brides online? Beware
Michael Barker, Reuters, Manila
Dian Marie, a domestic helper from Cebu in the Philippines, is
looking for a husband on the Internet and there are only two
major requirements listed -- he has to be Catholic and he has to
be a Westerner.
"I'm interested in marrying a foreign guy...I will prefer a
Canadian, Italian, English or American gentleman with high moral
values, (who is) positive, humble and must be Catholic," says her
advertisement on www.filipina.com.
The advertisement is accompanied by a photograph of a petite,
dark-skinned young woman. Marie says she is 20 and her potential
husband should be 30 to 50 years old.
The advertisement is typical of hundreds posted on three U.S.-
based Web sites to matchmake Filipinas and foreigners.
Most of the women seem to be seeking marriage and Westerners
and Catholics are preferred. But often the only requirement is a
foreigner willing to help them find a life overseas.
Local critics say the sites are no more than mail order bride
services, banned under a 1990 law, which are exploiting Filipinas
and in many cases trapping them into prostitution abroad.
"They exclusively and boldly sell Filipinas as brides and sex
commodities," says Senator Loren Legarda.
Bitter poverty and lack of employment in the predominantly
Catholic Philippines push hundreds of thousands of Filipinas to
work abroad every year, while many women also choose to seek
foreign partners as a way out of penury.
The lack of work has forced tens of thousands of women into
prostitution, and over the years the Philippines has earned a
reputation as a destination for sex tourists.
Legarda has urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to seek
United States government help in investigating the owners and
operators of the Web sites.
And she has called on local enforcement agencies to track down
and prosecute recruiters who are suspected of enticing naive,
young women into joining the sites and helping them with the
paperwork when they leave the country.
The Web sites contain databases of hundreds of women with
photographs and personal details, including contact information.
To access this information, site users pay around US$2 to $4
per woman they seek to know more about, plus a handling fee, or
for a larger sum they can become members, giving them access to
all the womens' contact details.
One of the sites boasts, "We guarantee that these listings are
of girls who have told us that they are interested in
corresponding with Western men for the purpose of marriage."
Left-wing political organization Bayan Muna claims that many
of those who join online services in the hope of marrying into a
better life abroad end up as sex workers in Asia, the United
States and Europe.
It estimates up to 150,000 Filipinas have left the country in
the past decade as fiances of foreigners.
In 1990, the government enacted a law to ban mail order bride
services after a host of complaints that agencies matching
Filipinas to foreigners for marriage were luring women into the
sex trade or into forced domestic labor.
Web site operators reject suggestions they are breaking the
law or enticing Filipinas into the sex industry, however.
"No one can honestly believe that it is possible to lure a
Filipina into any kind of sex trade by a months- or years-long
process to get a United States spouse or fiance visa," Larry
Pendarvis, the owner of filipina.com, told Reuters by e-mail.
"I defy anyone to produce one single girl who was lured into
the sex trade by someone who helped her marry an American."
Florida-based Dale Davis, who runs two Web sites that have
come under fire and who married a Filipina last year, also
dismissed the criticism.
"We do not have partners in the Philippines soliciting
applications, everything is done and publicized on the
Internet...we also do not offer any sex traffic options, we are
very much against that type of thing, both morally and legally."
He says his services were designed to "help people from all
over the world to get together as friends first, with the
possibility of finding the happiness that Josie (his wife) and I
have found".
Lennie Dineros, a 40-year-old Filipina who works in a Manila
bar catering mainly to expatriates and is a member of several
online matchmaking sites, also scoffs at claims of exploitation.
"I don't think the Web site has anything to do with
that...it's up to you if you would like to enter, you register at
your own risk," she said, adding most girls she knows who join
matchmaking sites do so for companionship or to meet foreign
penpals.
She also believes some girls are open to the idea of a
marriage to a foreigner which can be abruptly ended once they are
have settled overseas.
"The idea is to go there (abroad) and then divorce, most girls
are thinking that way...the guys are the ones being exploited,"
she laughs.