I hadn’t originally planned on writing a blog about Filipina mail-order brides, but while on the topic of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) I think it is important to write a blog about these women. I would also like to state before I continue this blog that an Anti-Mail Order Bride Law (Republic Act No. 6955) was approved on June 13, 1990 after the government was alarmed by reports of the abuse of Filipina women abroad and states the following:
“An act to declare unlawful the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail-order basis and other similar practices, including the advertisement, publication, printing or distribution of brochures, fliers and other propaganda materials in furtherance thereof and providing penalty therefor.”[i]
This law merely drove the industry underground because despite the fact that it is illegal in the Philippines, there are still many websites online for Filipina mail-order brides that I came across while doing research on the subject. It was actually harder to find articles on the subject as opposed to websites for the purposes of it and commentary on Alec Baldwin’s inappropriate joke about Filipino mail-order brides while on “Late Night” with David Letterman in ’09 to which he did apologize after the outcry from Filipinos [ii] [iii]. It is almost worse that it is difficult to find updated statistics on these women as many of the statistics are from the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Although the following statistics are out of date, I still want to share them to show the severity of this issue in the Philippines and how the law clearly is not working.
- In 1996, an estimated 20,000 Filipino women left the country every year as wives or fiancees of foreigners.[iv]
- 5000 Filipina mail-order brides enter the United States every year since 1986 with an average of 90,000 Filipinas as of 2004.
- 20,000 Filipina mail-order brides were in Australia in 1997.[v]
Australia is unanimously singled out as the worst offending country, with 18 Filipino wives killed by Australian husbands since 1985 according to a 1996 article, and there was recently a 2009 study on Filipina brides in Australia depicting a continuation of this trend.[vi]
The following is a quote I found interesting as it portrays a theory as to why the domination by these men of their mail-order brides is common. “The sense of ‘purchase’ in the men can lead to a feeling of ‘ownership’ of the women, says Ninotchka Rosca of GABRIELA, a women’s advocacy group based in Quezon City. “A paid-for wife,” Rosca says, “is a slave for life.”[vii]
A mail-order bride is one in the same with any woman who is a victim of human trafficking as they may face deception, coercion, and exploitation. Just having the term “bride” in there almost doesn’t make it sound so severe as most young girls think about getting married and being a beautiful bride, but that lifestyle can be much different than that of a normal bride from the way they are pursued to how it ends.
Take the case of Susana Remerata Blackwell, a mail-order bride. In 1990, Susana, with hopes of leaving the Philippines and marrying an American man unknowingly submitted her information to a mail-order bride catalog that she thought was just a pen-pal service, which is a cover most agencies take to bypass the Anti-Mail-Order Bride Law. In 1991, she received her first of many letters from an American in his mid-40s named Timothy Blackwell. Susana was not the first woman he had pursued from a catalog. Their relationship continued and he travelled to the Philippines in 1993 to meet Susana and stayed with her and her family. He paid for their wedding in the Philippines a month later, and after all of her paperwork was finished, she joined him in the States in 1994. There was an incidence in the Philippines where Timothy hurt his wife when he lost his temper with her, but even after warnings from her mother, Susana followed him to America.
The couple spent 13 days together before Susana called the police to report domestic violence. 10 days later, Timothy began an annulment process but offered to drop it if Susana would pay him $17,000- the amount he had spent on her since he first met her in 1993. She declined this offer as she did not have the money to pay it. Right before the closing arguments in their divorce proceedings on March 2, 1995, Timothy Blackwell shot her and her two friends, Pheobe Dizon and Veronica Laureta, inside the King County Courthouse in Seattle. She was pregnant when she was killed by her husband.[viii]
Susana is just one of the multitude of Filipinas who have fallen victim to violence at the hands of a foreign husband because she dreamed of leaving the Philippines as many do for one reason or another.
People could be considered as the Philippines biggest export, and the majority are women. Just as OFWs search for work abroad to make a better life for themselves or for their families in the Philippines, Filipino women, Filipinas, would enter the mail-order bride industry with hopes of marrying a foreign man, moving abroad, and maybe one day sponsoring their family for immigration. These Filipinas that have good intentions when trying to find work overseas or a better life overseas but are encountering hardships and violence. We must bring an end to this industry of mail-order brides and general trafficking of these women because Filipinas are not for sale.
[i] Academy for Educational Development. “Government Laws”. Retrieved from http://www.humantrafficking.org/government_law/45
[ii] “Alec Baldwin’s Filipino mail-order-bride JOKE!” (0:38) Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-RlcPlSAiI
[iii] “Alec Baldwin apologizes over Filipino mail-order bride joke”. Retrieve from http://www.celebitchy.com/52157/alec_baldwin_apologizes_over_filipino_mail-order_bride_joke/
[iv] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960421&slug=2325181
[v] Gabriela, Statistics and the State of the Philippines
[vi] http://www.law.uq.edu.au/documents/humantraffic/victimsupport/Mail-Order-Brides.pdf
[vii] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960421&slug=2325181
[viii] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960421&slug=2325181
7 Comments
I found the topic that you brought up in your blog quite intriguing. However, the problem with such issues is that there is no clear answer as to how to stop such an issue. It is a very similar issue to prostitution in that way. Do you stop it by making the service illegal? More importantly, who do you punish? In this case, the women who are Filipina would face the consequences of the law while the men who actually commit the offenses would be left free to continue. In the case that was presented in this article, you mention that the man had per sued different mail order brides prior to this one. This means that this man had done this to different women. However, it is impossible to punish these international clients because they are protected by international laws and regulations. I wish that there was an easy solution to such problems, but it is important that people are aware of what really happens in such situations.
I found your blog particularly interesting and disheartening because, just as many of the topics we have been discussing, it raises a fundamental question about human morality. It seems to me that mail ordering brides is a modern equivalent to slavery. The men who order wives know fundamentally that what they are doing is wrong, and it sickens me that these people continue to get away with this. There are so many people who take advantage of young women and girls through trafficking and it just makes me wonder, are human being fundamentally bad? I would like to think not, but in the face of statistics and stories like the one you described in your blog, it makes me wonder if its true.
This blog post is very sad, but sheds light on an important issue. I personally had never heard of mail order brides before and I’m sure many other people would say the same. It seems that mail order brides are equivalent to slavery as Natalie said. These men are buying women as if they are a possession and then feel that they are entitled to treat them how ever they would like. It’s a scary thought that human beings would actually do this. What is more scary is that Filipina’s are still giving their information to these organizations and believe that marrying an international man will solve the problems occuring in their home. There are so many additional issues wrapped in this situation, where do we start?!
Wow! This was so deep. I had heard about this briefly, I think it had come up in a conversation once between my friends and I, but I had never read about it. Wow! The story of Susana is so sad. When you see it from her point of view, there she was innocently looking for a pen pal, and thought that she had actually met someone that she could marry, and who would help her progress in life. I can’t help but feel that poverty is what led Susana to her demise. I know in Tanzania, so many women don’t think twice about marrying american/westerners and going abroad with them without knowing anything about where they are from/their families/their histories/etc. I think this is an issue that needs more attention because many women in developing countries are doing this, not just through a mail order catalog, but in many situations where they start a relationship with a westerner, they see it as a means of economic progress, or getting out of their tough situation.
Thanks for posting another fascinating blog. I found the story Susana very interesting, especially the fact that she was unaware that she was submitting her information for more than just a pen pal. Other than the apparently unenforceable law passed in 1990, is the Phillipine government or any NGOs doing anything to stop this or at least trying to better inform women, like Susana? Has the media in the Phillipines publicized these stories or do they tend to “romanticize” the mail-order bride experience?
I really appreciate you discussing mail-order brides, Rachel. I have seen them walking around with their husbands all too frequently, and each time I wonder what I can do beyond simply saying hello. When one encounters a mail-order bride, what should one do? I would love to speak with you sometime about this.
This problem is also so complex given the economic situation of the Philippines. There just are not enough jobs for the people there, and if one wants to eliminate mail-order brides, one needs to address the macro level issues, too. As with everything else we have discussed in the course, the complexity is such a challenge. Raising awareness, however, is certainly the first step.
“A paid-for wife,” Rosca says, “is a slave for life.” This past week I grappled with one issue – the fact that a man would take serious offense when a woman chose to adopt family planning options to keep herself safe. This incessant need for control seems to be a precursor for almost all kinds of violence against women – including sexual assault. This issue here is another manifestation of that need for control, and the “sense of ownership” that some men seem to need. That seems to be one major evil against women of the world, and in this case – the mail order brides.