Letter To The Dem. Rep. Rick Larsen
(Copy to Dem. Sen. Maria Cantwell)

TO: Rep. Rick Larsen 
1005 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515 
Phone: (202) 225-2265
Fax: (202) 225-1031

FROM: Elena Petrova
Robina
Queensland, Australia
Phone: (+617) 5578 7977
Fax: (+617) 5578 7944

25 July 2003
(Facsimile transmissions: 11 August 2003, 13 August 2003)

Dear Mr Larsen,

I am writing to you in regard to the Senate Bill concerning the international matchmaking organizations, which you have sponsored together with Sen. Maria Cantwell.

My name is Elena Petrova. I am a Russian woman married to a westerner, and live on the Gold Coast, Australia. I have a number of websites devoted to the international dating between Russian women and western men, content websites with the information for both women (www.zamuzh.com, in Russian) and men (www.womenrussia.com, in English), as well as rendering some dating services.

As a Russian woman and the owner of international matchmaking websites, I would like to express my complete agreement with your initiative.

Cases like Anastasia King's should never be repeated.

My only concern is how the proposed Bill will be implemented. Who will be responsible for performing the background checks? Will it be a responsibility of a matchmaking organization? Or will the man himself be requested to provide the results of a background check?

In any case, the period between an introduction and the actual marriage usually takes at least 6 months (even longer with the current security checks for prospective immigrants), up to 18 months on average, and for this time a man can be involved in a crime or violence, even if he had no records of violence or crime at the moment of his introduction to a prospective bride. Or the man can even marry somebody else in between the introduction and his marriage proposal to another woman, continuously seeking new foreign brides while being already involved. This was the case with Anastasia King, where her husband, Indle King Jr., was seeking another bride while still being married to Anastasia. Nothing prevents an abusive or criminal man from having multiple long-distance romances.

Also, in the case where translations of the background check results to the native language of a woman are to be performed by the matchmaking organization, the correctness of the translation may be doubtful. As an experienced translator, I know very well that many words can be translated differently, and the actual meaning may be changed by the use of an inappropriate word.

In addition, nothing prevents an abusive or criminal man from using general dating sites, such as Match.com, FriendFinder.com etc, which have more profiles of foreign women in their databases than any USA international matchmaking organization, for the purposes of making contacts with prospective brides. The number of international introductions entered into through such dating sites is significant.

The man can also use any of the numerous matchmaking agencies located at the woman's country, or any other offshore matchmaking agency.

Naturally, the USA Congress will not be able to impose the requirement of compulsory background checks on all those agencies, and where the USA citizen elected to use services of an offshore matchmaking agency, their female clients will be left unprotected against the USA men with the history of violence and abuse.

Therefore it seems to me extremely important that the background check and the check of marriage records is performed by an organization that is fit for this important purpose.

In my opinion, such organization could be the BSIS (former INS), and the costs of a thorough background check should be included in the cost of application for a fiancée or spouse visa in order to bring a foreign fiancée/spouse into the USA. The results of this background check should be presented to the woman before her visa Interview in the Embassy (together with the package of documents for her to complete for her fiancée visa application, which is sent from the Embassy to all foreign applicants) or during her visa Interview.

This way, the results of the background check will be received by a woman directly from the officials, and not through mediators, thus providing the guarantee the results were not altered or changed in some way. Also, regardless of where an introduction was originated from, all foreign brides will be protected, and not only the clients of the USA matchmaking organizations.

The international matchmaking organizations are simply unfit to perform mandatory background checks on their clients. They are not equipped for this important purpose.

I think the best would be if the task of background checks were imposed on an official organization such as BSIS (former INS), and not on the USA matchmaking organizations.

USA matchmaking organizations are in general much more honest and open organizations than any matchmaking agencies based locally in the countries where the prospective mail order brides reside. Imposing the request for a mandatory background check on the USA matchmaking agencies will only give an unfair advantage to offshore matchmaking agencies, and many of the offshore matchmaking agencies are not as honest and open as the USA matchmaking organizations.

Having this unfair advantage, unscrupulous offshore matchmaking organizations may outperform the legitimate USA matchmaking organizations, and at the end, instead of offering better protection to women marrying American citizens, the proposed Bill can result in more violence against mail order brides, and more cases like Anastasia King's murder.

I will appreciate your comment on this matter.

Sincerely
Elena Petrova
RUSSIAN BRIDES CYBER GUIDE
http://www.womenrussia.com 

P.S. Since I am not in the USA, and the proposed Bill in no way will affect my own business, you can be assured that my concern about women's safety is genuine, and not inflicted by some hidden agenda.

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