A week ago a news article appeared in a Denver newspaper. The news article began: "A task force intent on eradicating human trafficking will debate whether Colorado should deem mail-order brides as sex slaves and will set up a training program to teach police the difference between prostitutes and sex slaves."
I contacted Alice Borodkin, the Colorado State Representative who is forming this task force and expressed my concerns to her. She responded promptly and her email read, in part: "While mail order brides will be discussed, it is not the focus of the task force. Some international match making is perfectly OK, most are not, so we need to educate ourselves as well as the public and law enforcement to what we actually are dealing with."
I responded to her email and told her of some abuses BY women TOWARD men but I also wrote that my evidence is anecdotal only as there is a dearth of studies in this area and in any event it would be hard to get statistics on, for example, women falsely claiming spousal abuse in order to prevent being divorced and deported. I asked the Representative if she could share her scientific studies with me that led her to conclude that most international matchmaking is not OK.
Her response: "I am not a scientist. Therefore I have no 'scientific' proof." Naturally it is troubling to see an elected representative making public statements of policy that appear to be based on her opinion sans facts. But the good news is that she invited me to join the committee at all future meetings and welcomed my input. I intend to go.
So I need help. I need to begin compiling all the scientific studies that exist regarding MOBs. Please give me references.
