Editing Mail-order bride (section)

==Motivations==
===East and Southeast Asia===
Many international brides come from developing countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia, and occasionally from South Asia as well. The countries the women come from are faced with unemployment, malnutrition and inflation.<ref name="Meng, Eddy 1994">Meng, Eddy. "Mail-Order Brides: Gilded Prostitution and the Legal Response." ''Journal of Law Reform''; 28 (1994): 197.</ref> However, economic factors are not the only driving factor for women in Asia to enter the mail-order industry. In some cases women were recruited based on their physical appearance, with an emphasis placed on youth and virginity.<ref name="Meng, Eddy 1994"/> This is found among boutique agencies, most of which cater to wealthy men from other Asian nations. During the 1990s, the majority of Asian mail-order brides came from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos  and China.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies |url=http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=ijgls/ |title=The Mail-Order Bride Industry and Immigration: Combating Immigration Fraud |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140314175439/http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=ijgls%2F |archive-date=2014-03-14}}</ref>

In 2022, Monica Liu published findings which question the common assumption that mail-order brides in East Asia are often seeking marriage to escape poverty. She found that many marriage agencies in China cater to women from wealthy backgrounds.<ref>{{cite book | last=Liu | first=M. | title=Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides under China's Global Rise | publisher=Stanford University Press | series=Globalization in Everyday Life | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-5036-3374-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=59l-EAAAQBAJ&pg=PT14 | access-date=2023-10-14 | page=137 |quote= "Historically, Asian men have been stereotyped in both China and the United States as weaker and less sexually desirable than white men...These stereotypes originated with Western imperialism, which defined Asians as inherently feminized...Nevertheless, in China today, Western men, and white men in particular, still enjoy some degree of racial sexual capital..."}}</ref><ref name="StandfordUP">{{cite book | title=Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides under China's Global Rise – Monica Liu | website=Stanford University Press Home Page | isbn=978-1-5036-3247-9 | url=https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35148 | access-date=2023-10-14| quote= Her study of China's email-order bride industry offers stories of Chinese women who are primarily middle-aged, divorced, and proactively seeking spouses to fulfill their material and sexual needs. | last1=Liu | first1=Monica | date=27 April 2024 | publisher=Stanford University Press }}</ref> Liu found that in many cases, wealthy Chinese women sought Western, especially [[White American]] partners, because they are stereotyped within China as being more masculine and better able to satisfy women's sexual and emotional needs.{{sfn|Liu|2022|p=137}}<ref name="StandfordUP" /> However, for the wealthiest Chinese women, the lower income of their foreign boyfriends was sometimes an impediment to marriage.{{sfn|Liu|2022|p=137}} 

According to Ericka Johnson, in Taiwan, many Taiwanese men seek Southeast Asian women as mail-order wives because they prefer hard-working women who will accept the drudges of daily housewife chores, while Taiwanese women reject this traditional view of a woman's role in marriage. For this reason, Taiwanese women seek to marry Western mail-order husbands.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Ericka |title=Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband: Russian-American Internet Romance |date=13 July 2007 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8975-0 |page=180 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mP2z8K4KAqkC&pg=PA180 |language=en}}</ref>

====Philippines====
Filipina women often entered the mail-order industry in the hope of marrying abroad, and then sponsoring their family for immigration.<ref name="Meng, Eddy 1994"/>

===Eastern Europe===
Economic and social conditions for women in Russia and other [[Post-Soviet states]] are a motivational factor in finding foreign arrangements. The rise of Russian mail-order brides happened immediately after the [[collapse of the Soviet Union]].<ref name="Barry 1996 p. 155">{{cite book | last=Barry | first=K. | title=The Prostitution of Sexuality: The Global Exploitation of Women | publisher=NYU Press | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-8147-2336-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DyR8eUbJhIC&pg=PA155 | access-date=2023-10-14 | page=155}}</ref> In 2004 testimony before the United States Senate, Professor [[Donna M. Hughes|Donna Hughes]] said that two-thirds of Ukrainian women interviewed wanted to live abroad and this rose to 97% in the resort city of [[Yalta]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hughes |first1=Donna M. |title=Human Trafficking: Mail-Order Bride Abuses |url=http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/testimony_senate_july04.pdf |website=University of Rhode Island |access-date=30 March 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120704085428/http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/testimony_senate_july04.pdf |archive-date=4 July 2012 |language=en |date=13 July 2004 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Russia====
In 1999 it was reported that women in Russia earned 43 percent of what men did.<ref>Hughes, Donna M. "Commercial Use of the Internet for Sexual Exploitation: Pimps and Predators on the Internet, Globalizing the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children, Part 1." Coalition Against the Trafficking in Women (1999). The University of Rhode Island. Mar. 1999. Web. Nov. 2010.</ref> Marriage is a substantial part of [[Russian culture]], with 30 years being the age at which a woman is considered an "[[old maid]]".<ref>Sullivan, Kevin. "Blissful Coexistence?; U.S. Men Seek Mail-Order Brides in Russia" ''The Washington Post''. 24 May 1994. Web. 12 November 2010.</ref>{{Update inline|date=March 2025|reason=The source was published over 30 years ago, but the sentence discusses the perspective as if it is current. Either the source or phrasing needs updating.}}