International Marriage Broker Regulation Act:
Propaganda and Facts 

22 July 2004, Gold Coast, Australia -- [Statement of Elena Petrova, Russian Brides Cyber Guide http://www.womenrussia.com] The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA), was introduced in Congress in July 2003. Last week Senator Maria Cantwell, the sponsor of the Bill, testified before Foreign Relations Committee. In her speech she again referred to "trafficking" and criticized for-profit international dating services. She mentioned my site www.womenrussia.com and this is why I feel I need to clear up my position in regard to IMBRA.

I tried to be politically correct in my press releases before but it appears not to be working.

So this time I will be direct and straight to the point.

1. I fully support the idea of regulation of online dating services and more protection for foreign people marrying American citizens.

I am appalled that some people try to portray me as somebody who opposes the idea of better protection for foreign women. That's a mean trick. Those people should read my news releases of the past. I support the idea of better protection for people entering international relationships, period. I want to help honest, sincere people with genuine intentions to find a happy and rewarding international relationships and to stop dishonest people. I hope I am clear on that.

2. I personally will benefit from IMBRA - I do not criticize it because it will hurt my profits.

Residing in Australia, I am not a subject of the proposed Regulation. Vice versa, I will benefit from it financially because it will crash my American competition. The only reason why I criticize this Regulation is because I believe it will not help better protection of foreign women. I am afraid once lawmakers vote IMBRA to life, they will not come back to address this issue any time soon and it will remain unsolved, causing more problems and maybe even tragedies. 

3. Most measures included in the IMBRA have nothing to do with international dating services.

Most measures included in the IMBRA are designed to fix the loopholes in the current immigration procedure: namely, prohibiting filing multiple fiancee visa applications at the same time and criminal background checks on visa sponsors, which would be relayed to the visa applicant by the consular official along with information on their legal rights should they find themselves in an abusive relationship. These improvements are logical and I fully support them.

But they have nothing to do with international dating services! They are the responsibility of the Department of Immigration and my only complaint is that they should have done it long time ago.

4. I find the IMBRA extremely biased and using inappropriate terminology. 

The very title of the Regulation uses the term "international marriage broker", which creates a wrong image. 

International dating agencies do NOT "broker" marriages. The process is no different from people using any online personals. One person (it can be a man or a woman) publishes an ad, the other person responds, they start communicating, establish a relationship, meet in person and take it from there. The role of a dating website is TO PUBLISH ADS, so people could find other people interested in establishing a relationship. The dating site "brokers marriages" just the same way a newspaper publishing personal ads is doing that. Thus, the very term "international marriage brokers" is confusing and misleading.

The Regulation also refers to "trafficking" while it lacks a clear definition of this word. Normally, trafficking means illegal operation where people are brought to a foreign country under false promises or without following the proper immigration procedure. International dating sites do not promote anything illegal. They help people to meet somebody to establish a GENUINE relationship. The immigration authorities check if the relationship is genuine when the foreign person applies for a visa. I could not find any factual proof of an American-based international dating site being involved in trafficking. The Regulation does not provide such facts either, only labels. It's wrong.

All in all, through the use of labels, it seems any website that helps people to meet somebody internationally and makes money, is bad. Why? I have no idea. If people have a genuine relationship and love each other, what's wrong with it??

5. The sponsors of IMBRA use bogus facts and doubtful statistics.

For example, the official www.state.gov website of one of the co-sponsors, Jan Schakowsky, says that I, Elena Petrova, organized a petition opposing proposed Regulation. I did not. Such a petition was organized by an American-based agency (I live in Australia and I am not a subject of the proposed Regulation). Since March 31 2004, I have sent numerous letters to Jan Schakowsky through her website, mail and fax, and she still keeps this appalling lie on her official website. Why? Because the article portrays Jan Schakowsky in a good light. Apparently, the Congresswoman Schakowsky does not care that her website contains lies and she feels it is appropriate to use defamation against another person to promote herself. (The article can be found at: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_1_07_04_marriage_trap.html)

Another fact used by Senator Maria Cantwell in her testimony to Foreign Relations Committee (quoted by http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/releases/2004_07_13_mob.html): "Today, experts put the number of international marriage brokers at nearly 500 worldwide." What kind of experts do they use? There are more than 200 registered marriage agencies in my native city Ekaterinburg alone (population 1,5 million). There are at least the same numbers of agencies in Moscow and St. Petersburg. All in all, every Russian city or town has a marriage agency, which means only in Russia they have several thousands marriage agencies. The reason for that is that in Russia there are only 88 men for 100 women (it's official statistics from "The Economist") and for some women search for a partner abroad is their only hope to ever get married and have a family. This is why they have so many international marriage agencies. Where did Senator Cantwell get the figure of 500 international marriage brokers worldwide? A simple check on the Internet would prove her wrong. How true are her other facts?

The Regulation is based on assertion that marriages entered through for-profit international dating services are more prone to abuse than marriages entered through non-profit international dating services or services whose specialization is not international. The sponsors permanently make such claims while they are not supported by any facts. Vice versa, The Department of Justice has already conducted a study that demonstrated a lower rate of spousal abuse in international marriages as compared to the general population. There was also an exhaustive private study conducted by Lisa Simons entitled "Marriage, Migration, and Markets: International Matchmaking and International Feminism", which also concluded that foreign women who use international dating services are at no greater risk for spousal abuse than the general population.

I do not believe that any advertised goal warrants the use of bogus facts and doubtful statistics, while disregarding serious studies and facts. It's appalling.

6. The measures proposed in the IMBRA that are directly related to international dating services cannot warrant its advertised goal (i.e. better protection for foreign women marrying American citizens). 

It is the fact that the only measures directly related to activities of international dating services (labeled in the IMBRA as "international marriage brokers") are: 

1. Request for every male user of international dating services to provide an affidavit about his past marital history and criminal background, before he is allowed to view information of female members;

2. Receiving a consent on releasing her data from every woman a man wants to contact, on the base of this affidavit - so that she could refuse men with criminal background or inconsistent marital history.

The lawmakers say these measures will prevent men with criminal background from contacting foreign women. This claim is laughable, because the very same Regulation makes thousands of dating websites exempt from this Regulation. Large dating sites carrying hundreds of thousands of profiles of foreign nationals, such as Match.com, are exempt from this Regulation and criminal elements can easily use these websites to contact foreign women. No doubt this is exactly what they will do.

It is also questionable if criminal elements will honestly provide information on their criminal background to international dating services, which is supposed to be relayed to female members. Since dating service can only request AN AFFIDAVIT from a man, it is easy for persons with dubious intentions to misrepresent themselves. In terms of preventing criminal elements from contacting foreign women, the value of such an affidavit is pathetic.

Thus the proposed procedure cannot warrant its advertised goal of better protection for foreign women - but it is sure to become a turn-off for many honest and sincere people seeking genuine relationships. This will put American-based agencies in the situation of unfair competition, where their offshore counterparts will have several advantages:

• openly displaying women's ads without the need for a man to supply his criminal and marital background to the service (as opposed to requesting details of person's private life before allowing him to see any ads); 

• instant contact (as opposed to waiting for days or even weeks for the woman's consent to release her contact information);

• lower fees (because they will not have expenses for translating affidavits and commuting from men to women and back).

The point is, an honest man will not have a problem to undergo a background check performed by authorized officials during the process of visa application for his fiancee that he loves and wants to spend the rest of his life with. But he will have a problem to supply particulars of his private life to some website when he is not even sure he is interested in any member of this website (since he is not allowed to see women's ads before he supplies those particulars).

The proposed procedure seems to be based on assumption that a man using services of international matchmakers does not care which person to marry, just to get somebody to use as a slave. But most people do care which person to marry and seek their true love and their soul mate. A person of dignity will not feel comfortable being requested to provide details of his private life to some website he does not know and never used before, without being interested in a certain member of this website. Thus, the procedure suggested by IMBRA cannot stop dishonest people seeking slaves from using services of international matchmakers but it will be a huge turn-off for many honest people sincerely seeking their special one.

How would you, personally, feel about a website that requires you to detail your personal life for them and swear you are not a criminal, before allowing you in? Would not you just click away to another website where you do not need to do it? Or would you still proceed - without even seeing anybody you would like to get to know?

For me, who is involved with the international dating industry for more than 7 years, it is clear that once IMBRA is voted to life, American-based agencies will soon be out of business. It means, the IMBRA will become useless - there will be no one to impose this Regulation upon. If the service tries to comply with this Regulation, it will lose to their competition; and if it will not, it cannot operate.

Currently, American agencies are the only ones that inform women about their rights in regard to domestic violence. They are doing it for many years, since such a law was adopted in early nineties. When I was seeking a partner abroad in 1997, I learned about it from American-based agencies. This information was included in every promotional booklet from them. Once American-based agencies are out of business, no one will provide this information to women when they have just started their search. The consequences of it can be grave.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2003 is poorly designed. The measures related to international dating services cannot warrant its advertised goal. All in all, the IMBRA will not "regulate" the international matchmaking industry in the USA - it will simply destroy it. This is why American agencies are against it. They are not against of background checks on men marrying foreign women - they are against of poorly designed procedure that will destroy them as an industry.

The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2003 was originally sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats, and introduced in Senate of the USA 25 July 2003. The Bill has gained several co-sponsors from the House Democratic Team but was severely criticized by the insiders from the international matchmaking industry. 

Elena Petrova is well known in the Russian dating industry by her website Russian Brides Cyber Guide (http://www.womenrussia.com), which was founded in 1999 and became the first website about Russian women designed by a Russian woman.  

In March 2004 Elena started a campaign to promote a new image of Russian women seeking marriage abroad, supported by a number of other Russian women-website owners: in opposition to the current image of Russian women seeking partners abroad portrayed as submissive, serving and sacrificing, Russian Brides Cyber Guide offers the image of Russian women as intelligent, educated and smart, who seek suitable partners and not immigration by any means. 

Elena Petrova, the founder of Russian Brides Cyber Guide, fully supports the idea of better protection for foreign women marrying American citizens

Screenshot from the website of the U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky using bogus facts to promote IMBRA (click on the image to enlarge)

The passage in the article that contains incorrect information (click on the image to enlarge)