Internet Brides

[churchill]

Why is severe withdrawal of food used so frequently in abuse cases of foreign mail-order brides?

Why is food curtailing or near starvation used so commonly as spousal punishment? When a few American or European husbands that have Asian or Latin American mail-order (or Internet) brides start to abuse them, it's notable that abuse most often starts and escalates with the withholding of food and nutrition.

To make sure the wife obeys the husband's rules, the usual punishment is to feed only enough to keep the woman alive, and not to allow food as comfort. The withholding of food begins the escalation of spousal abuse and punishment.

Is the food withholding perhaps related to withholding of any semblance of independence? Or is it more related to taking away joy of life because the mens' realities are different from what they expected when marrying and isolating a bride from a different culture and language?

Why are California battered women's shelters filling up with so many Asian mail-order brides of American men? In this week's abuse case in the news, the foreign wife's freedom was a facade demanded by her husband and put on to impress the neighbors.

Take one case that received wide media attention in Sacramento in the last two days. Her husband did not allow her to have food beyond what is needed to stay alive. He did not allow her to have her own cash, and she had no form of transportation. See the September 4, 2009 Sacramento Bee article, "Cops: Calif. corrections worker held wife captive," or the September 5, 2009 Sacramento Bee article, "Police: California man kept Chinese Internet bride captive."

The wife had been starved in order to manipulate her. Also see the article, "Lodi wife forced into secret life of fear, abuse, police say." The wife had been starved, given food only enough to stay alive and only when she behaved, according to her husband's rules of what behaving meant. Police caught the husband hauling nine guns into his car.

Her husband detailed how he would kill her. And much of the alleged abuse revolved around the husband's sexual demands. The local area's battered women's shelter called "My Sister's House" reports that 50 percent of the women there are Asian. The beds are filled. The women at that shelter currently come from Vietnam, India, and the Philippines.

Sadly, Internet mail-order marriages that soon turn ugly are very similar in the treatment of the women as individualized human trafficking. Instead of being a sex slave to many men as in trafficking, the new mail-order bride has to serve one master, and often is abused when he tires of her or when his sexual additions turn painful or psychologically abusive to the wife.

The husband, employed as a social worker at a Northern California corrections facility, found a Chinese wife on the Internet, went to China, married her, lived in China for a while, and then brought her to the USA. But the story doesn't stop there. After enduring 10 months of abuse, she finally ran toward a passing police car and jumped at the car's window, begging for help. The couple lived in a converted storefront in a strip mall.

Soon, allegedly, he began to physically and mentally abuse her. The problem is not limited to one man and his mail-order foreign bride. The local battered women's shelters in N. California are full with numerous Asian wives of American men with similar stories. Met online or through mail order, eventually brought to the US and then tortured or otherwise abused, kept penniless, and threatened with being killed or deportation if they disobey their husbands or seek any form of financial independence.

Often these women don't speak English well, are trapped in a new country where they have no family or friends, and are isolated. In this case, a Northern California corrections worker is being held on suspicion of sexually abusing his Chinese immigrant wife and holding her captive for nearly two years. He's in his sixties. She's in her forties.

Sometimes these marriages involve older American or European mean and much younger brides coming from China, Thailand, the Philippines, or other Asian countries. There are numerous Russian brides, and women from areas where living conditions were harsh and the thought of living in America drove them to advertise on the Internet to meet American men or sometimes European men that were marriage-minded.

Authorities say the 60-year old a social worker at a prison outside Sacramento was arrested Thursday after his 44-year-old wife called police and reported he was threatening to kill her.

The woman told police her husband forced her to perform various sex acts against her will, deprived her of food, and took her places against her will over the last 22 months after he married her four years ago and brought her to the United States, according to the Lodi, California police spokesperson.

When her husband allegedly threatened to kill her, she decided to run towards a police car that happened to be near her home. The Chinese wife ran toward the patrol car and jumped through an open passenger window.

Police arrested her American husband as he was loading numerous firearms into his truck. Police also found on his person $23,000 in cash. For further information on this story, read the article which details the person's name and place of employment where he has been placed on administrative leave.

This problem is not unique. In Sacramento, the six beds of one battered women's shelter are full. Many of the women in the various battered women's shelters in the area are of Asian origin married to American men that brought them to California as mail-order brides, frequently met online. When the abuse begins, the women are isolated with no one they can contact, threatened with deportation or death, and are abused physically, sexually, and emotionally by their only contact, their husbands.

With help, many of these brides are going to night school to learn English and to learn of their rights so they won't be threatened with deportation again or other forms of mental and physical abuse. It's similar to buying women for sex trafficking, except in the mail order brides situations, it's about serving as a virtual slave one man instead of many.

Since the charges are alleged, no names are mentioned here. You can read the details and names on at the Sacbee articles, "Police: California man kept Chinese Internet bride captive."

Meanwhile, police are holding the husband at the Lodi City Jail on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, making terrorist threats, spousal battery, various sex crimes and failure to provide for a spouse. He is expected to be arraigned Friday.

According to the Sacramento Bee article, "police had been called to the home at least twice before, but officers saw no signs of abuse and the woman said she was OK," according to the statement police gave to the Sacramento Bee.

The police noted that her husband convinced her that if she betrayed him to the police and he went to jail, she might be deported. This is a common threat that husband give to their mail order brides from various countries, usually Asian or Latin American women. The wives have no way of knowing whether the husband is misleading them or not. Often they are afraid to talk to the police.

That's why it's important that battered women's shelters and other programs talk to women who become mail order brides at the time they enter the USA to inform them that they have to right to come forward for help if they are abused and that telling on their husbands won't get them deported.

The problem is no so isolating with the many Russian brides of America men because often they still have contact with their families and back in Russia usually had careers and are more financially independent.

Some have taken English courses before they come to the USA. But the problem does exist, and sex worker trafficking of Ukranian, Moldovan, and Russian women is a frequent problem. With Asian women, the brides are more isolated. Interestingly, the man in the article, a social worker in a correctional facility, had lived in China for a time.

The personality changes drastically when the women are isolated in the USA and have no way of reaching their own families back in China or other Asian or Latin American countries. The issue can be researched by visiting the battered women's shelters or safe houses and tabulating the high percentages of Asian women in there fleeing death threats, beatings, or other abuse by their husbands whom they met online or through mail correspondence.

This is another look at intercultural marriages. The more familiar stories in the news usually are about American women married to foreign men who become battered wives and lose custody of their children when their ex-husband ships the children off to his relatives in a foreign country, usually an Asian, African, or Latin-American nation.

This time, it's the Asian brides of American men being isolated, kept in poverty, and abused. With the shelters full almost all the time, where can these spouses turn for help, especially when not speaking English or just beginning to learn it?

http://www.examiner.com/x-7160-Sacramento-...ailorder-brides

[Briggsy]

Whilst not disputing the facts here, this is a very one-sided news story.

Many lonely men lose tens of thousands of pounds or the equivalent of their savings to internet brides.

There are 2 sides to every story.

[fred2007]

So how many hours a day you sit on the internernet just to find shit like that? Don't you have a job to do? And this is all Thailand related is it?

[bonobo]

Not Thai-related.

Closed.