PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
Tell MasterCard, Visa, JCB, AmEx, PayPal To Stop Facilitating The Mail Order Bride Business
  1. Signatures
    359 out of 1,000
    Petitioning
    1. Mr. Robert W. Selander
  2. Created By
    Hannah Prager
    nY, NY
About this Petition Petition Letter

To continue the success demonstrated by the elimination of Diners Club from the Bride Trafficking Industry, effort must now be directed toward the next obvious targets: major credit card companies.

The facilitating of payments used in the recruitment and sale of mail-order brides is unregulated. All the major credit card companies are involved and have been for years. The international on-line matchmaking business appears to be thriving largely because of increased Internet use worldwide, low overhead and start-up costs, and the seemingly endless supply of eligible foreign women. Today, any man with Internet access, an electronic photo (even ten years old) and a credit card can shop. Do these card companies really need this business badly enough? Diners Club proved that the answer is no.  Other card companies must now be directed to the same conclusion. The following is a very small sample of Bride Trafficking sites that have teamed up with MasterCard, Visa, AmEx, and PayPal.


http://www.laobabes.com/
http://www.sweetsingles.com/thai/thai_girls.htm
http://www.thailoveletters.com/home.html

http://www.exoticasianwomen.com/
http://sunshine-girls.com/
http://www.filipinasplendor.com/


While legitimizing the purchase of a human being by way of business relationships with respectable US-based corporations is ethically and philosophically disgusting, it also reduces the logistical barrier to buying a bride.  Removing that barrier allows trafficker husbands to more easily acquire women.  It opens the door to an ever increasing class of criminals to buy and exploit these women.

Recent Signatures

End Financing of Mail Order Brides

Dear Mr Selander

I would like to express my deep concerns over serious the human rights violations major credit card companies are supporting.  I was appalled to learn that these companies are in partnership with hundreds of marriage brokers to provide a payment plan for the purchase of women, dehumanizing them and treating them like commodities.  MasterCard, Visa, AmEx has agreed to finance and therefore legitimize the purchase of these women. While the mail-order bride industry is a legal business, it is characterized by several important features which render the women sold within it especially susceptible to exploitative practices, including human trafficking, domestic violence, and other abuses.  Because mail order bride companies are commercial enterprises, they favor the interests of the paying clients, usually men, over the interests of the brides, usually women with few economic options.  The industry is also poorly regulated.  Together, these characteristics allow criminals to use mail order bride agencies to traffic and abuse women. By providing credit, these credit card companies are financially and morally supporting an industry which has been heavily associated with the trafficking of women. Please help us end this facilitating of trafficking.      
Regards,  

[Your name]

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