A: The business of bride trade or marriage matching is sex trafficking because it treats women as a commodity to be sold to foreign men. The purpose is not to find lifetime loving partners for women but to supply foreign men with a wife to be treated as a sex object, domestic worker and all-around slave. Some religious cults or groups practice bride trade through large-scale recruitment of foreign women to provide wives to their members or followers. In 1996, 984 Filipino women were computer-matched by a Korean religious sect with predominantly Korean men who were reported to have paid $2,000 each for the service. (Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 25, 1996, page 1 and The Manila Chronicle, February 4, 1996) During the same period, it was found out that 70 percent of the 20,000 mail-order-brides in Australia are Filipinas. (Center for Philippine Concerns, Melbourne, Australia).

A: The mail-order-bride is not different from any woman who is a victim of sex trafficking. She may be an unemployed or underemployed college graduate or less educated poor rural woman. The Commission on Filipino Overseas (CFO) of the Department of Foreign Affairs counseled 18,598 Filipino fiancees/spouses of foreign nationals in 1996. Of this figure, 91 percent were women, 70 percent had limited or no knowledge of their host country, 62 percent were below 30 years old and 42 percent were unemployed.

A: Sex trafficking systematically violates women’s human rights including the right to life and security of persons. It places women in danger of physical abuse and deprives them of bodily integrity. They are constrained of the right to travel and to freedom of movement, as those who wish to travel abroad are placed at risk of being victimized by traffickers and those sold to prostitution are kept in brothels and prevented from leaving or even communicating with their families back home. Their freedom from slavery and abuse is violated, as a trafficked woman who is prostituted becomes the slave of any man who “buys” her; and right to legal protection, because a trafficked woman is often the victim of illegal recruiters or travels through illegal channels, therefore not covered by the laws of the country of destination.