Background: Some, including former Fox News columnist Wendy McElroy, have criticized the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA) for being anti-male.
According to McElroy, “the IMBRA requires American men who wish to correspond with foreign women through private for-profit matchmaking agencies to first provide those businesses with their police records and other personal information to be turned over to the women. Corresponding with a foreigner is legal. Marrying a foreigner is legal….Now American men who wish to pursue a legal activity must release their government files to a foreign business and foreign individuals.”
A group has formed to protest the anti-male IMBRA–Online Dating Rights (ODR). The ODR criticizes the IMBRA, and notes “this is the first time in US history criminal background checks have been required for two people to communicate.” To learn more, click here.
Men’s rights columnist Carey Roberts has an interesting new column on the IMBRA–IMBRA: Anatomy of a Feminist Hoax (MensNewsDaily.com, 9/26/07). Roberts writes:
“[IMBRA opponent] Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington…brandished the notion of “mail-order brides,†casting foreign women as victims of predatory males. Then she dubbed international dating services as “marriage brokers,†conjuring up the image of a rogue operation trading lives for dollars.
“On July 13, 2004 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee scheduled a hearing to air the issue. No dating services or happily-betrothed foreign women were invited to testify — their comments would not likely fit the script.
“During her testimony, Cantwell made the startling claim that match-making services serve as a nefarious front for international human trafficking. She concluded, “there is a growing epidemic of domestic abuse among couples who meet via international marriage brokers.†As proof of that “epidemic,†she highlighted the cases of three abused women.
“Cantwell’s depiction of comely maidens being seduced into prostitution rings was more than Sen. Sam Brownback could resist, and before long he signed on as a leading co-sponsor of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act. With liberals and conservatives now on board, IMBRA’s political star was rising.
“But it turns out that Senator Cantwell’s supposition that dating services drag women into a life of sex slavery and indentured servitude was nothing more than a feminist tall-tale.
“There was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service report that revealed, “less than 1 percent of the abuse cases now being brought to the attention of the INS can be attributed to the mail-order bride industry.â€Â
“A second analysis soberly concluded that foreign brides are “dramatically less likely to be involved in domestic violence as calculated by the Intimate Partner Murder Rate.â€Â
“And earlier this week the Washington Post reported that early estimates of up to 100,000 human trafficking victims being secreted into the United States each year were grossly exaggerated. Despite more than $150 million of taxpayer dollars diverted to a massive search and rescue effort, it turns out the actual number of trafficking victims is closer to 200 annually.”
Read Roberts’ full column here.
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