Bride and Gloom


The number of Filipinos marrying foreigners has tripled in the past eight years, according to a new Country Gender Assessment study by the Asian Development Bank.


The inability of the Philippine economy to produce decent jobs – especially for women – has pushed Filipinos to marry foreigners as a way to escape poverty and provide for their extended families back home.


Canada is one of the key destinations for these ‘mail-order brides,’ along with the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea.


It is estimated that there are over 300,000 Filipinos – 92 per cent of whom are women – married to foreigners in these countries, according to the study.


The ADB said Manila must undertake measures to protect Filipino women, as those who marry foreigners that they do not know face enormous risks.


"Many of the men . . . are unsuccessful with women from their own culture, who they feel are spoiled and have too many freedoms. Instead, they want women with ‘traditional’ family values who, once in the country, have nowhere to turn and are completely at their mercy," the ADB report stated.


The number of Filipinos marrying foreigners each year has tripled from 7,819 in 1998 to 24,954 in 2006.


The rise of the Internet, with its ability to instantly and inexpensively transmit images and chit-chat, is one of the major factors contributing to the explosive growth of The Philippines’ mail-order-bride phenomenon.


Marriage migration numbers, the ADB said, are on the rise as a direct result.


"People get connected through the Net," said Evelyn Soriano, a Settlement Program Officer with the immigrant services network S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Richmond, British Columbia.


"They haven’t met each other but they’ve known each other for awhile . . . it’s easy to talk and you don’t have to pay the long distance charges you once did."


Cautioned S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Chief Executive Officer Thomas Tam, in Surrey, B.C.: "Everything on the Internet is only a virtual kind of reality. Women have to be more careful; I would ask people to seek other sources of information to support what they have learned or found on the Internet."


The ADB study reiterated the obvious – that many Filipinas view marrying a foreigner as an easy ticket to an overseas life with steady remittances.


But new data from The Commission on Filipinos Overseas also shows that Filipino women marrying foreign men are increasingly younger and less educated than their future spouses, with the foreign men tending to be at least 40 years older than their Filipino brides.


Tom Avendano, President of Vancouver’s Multicultural Helping House Society, a Filipino immigrant support group, says many marriages between Filipina newcomers and their Canadian husbands are successful, but "there are a lot of difficulties" where younger, starry-eyed women have married much older men, or husbands they have only courted through correspondence.


"All of them (newcomer Filipinas) suffer really a culture shock," said Avendano. "And we have programs to help them with that."


"But in some cases they are not knowing the husband and he is not as good as he appeared to be before."


Avendano said many of these mail-order brides have no relatives or even friends to turn to, and "this is where problems start."


"In some cases they are not allowed to go out of the home or speak with anyone in the community. They are virtually a prisoner of the husband."


Many are the stories, said Avendano, of young Filipinas marrying "80-year-old guys" in Canada.


"My explanation is because of the hard times back home, to get out of poverty. Anyone would take a chance to survive.


"Filipinas are dedicated wives," he added. "They will suffer as long as the husband will die and then maybe they will get their freedom."


Settlement Program Officer Soriano said most Filipinas she deals with in Metro Vancouver are too proud to admit that they came to Canada as mail-order brides.


"Many come here to be domestic workers, that’s their entry ticket," she explained. "That’s how they find work and meet people."


She said she is "not surprised at all" that the number of Filipinos marrying foreigners has tripled in recent years.


"It’s a ticket out of poverty," she said. "To meet a Caucasian husband, a Canadian husband, it’s a gift from heaven."


Among the recommendations of the ADB report is a program to tap remittances from overseas Filipinos for productive investment and sustainable livelihood opportunities for women so that migration becomes a choice rather than a necessity.

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