China takes fight to internet! Begins banning mail-order bride websites

Online bride-shopping websites are being targeted by Chinese and Cambodian authorities in a new anti-human-trafficking initiative, aimed at preventing the exploitation of women from poorer countries.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "We support the crackdown and elimination of these websites," said Cambodia's Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak. "Marriage websites, and any kind of bride brokerage involving a middleman, is illegal in Cambodia."

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Still, there are numerous bride-purchasing websites, almost too many to count. Some sites even disguise their intentions by pretending to be dating websites, showing women arranged like products with mug shots and details on height, weight and what kind of man they want.

Some sites offer package tours that cater to wealthier men from China, Japan or Singapore. The tours cost between $5,000 and $12,000 and the men take a week long visit to the country to personally browse their options. A few sites guarantee virginity, and others promise a replacement wife if the first one runs away.

Rights groups have jumped in, saying that closing the websites is the wrong way to handle the situation.

"Rather than shutting down websites, a better, more effective approach is to bolster regulatory oversight of these brokers in both Cambodia and China, and set up effective Khmer-language hotlines in China so that women who are trafficked can seek assistance," said Phil Robertson, a deputy director with Human Rights Watch.

Ros Sopheap, the executive director of Gender and Development for Cambodia agreed that targeting this facet of bride-selling will do more harm than good.

"It's like when the government decided to shut down brothels to stop trafficking. It didn't help - it pushed the trade into nightclubs or massage parlors. The people who are violating women will continue to find ways to do so," he said.

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