A law passed by the US Congress requires American marriage agencies, most of which work through wedding websites, to provide foreign women with information about applicants' previous marriages and criminal backgrounds. Supporters of the law, passed after the death of 20-year-old Anastasia King, killed on the orders of her American husband, believe it aims to protect about five thousand "Internet brides", or "catalogue brides", who come to America every year from aggressive husbands.
But more than a thousand women registered with the agency AForeign Affair have signed a petition stating that the new law is excessively protective. "I do not want to know such things about a man when we meet," said 32-year-old Elena Kolesnikova, a designer seeking to find an "honest, reliable, sensitive man". "If something is wrong, I prefer to learn about it later, as the relationship develops. If you meet a man in a bar, you do not ask about his criminal past." 19-year-old law student Galiya Elpacheva said: "This is a question that affects human dignity. It is humiliating and awkward to demand such information every time a man wants to communicate with me."
The new law, officially called the "International Marriage Broker Regulation Act", is considered in the US the most serious attempt to bring the weakly regulated Internet industry under federal control. The bill was proposed after Anastasia King, a native of Kyrgyzstan, was killed by her 39-year-old American husband. His first wife received a protective court order in 1995, and supporters of the law believe that if Anastasia had known about it, she would be alive. As it happened, a gifted singer and pianist met the obese, balding warehouse clerk King through an international marriage agency. In search of a new life beyond the borders of her impoverished homeland, she married the applicant, who was much older than her, in 1998. A diary found after her death says King threatened to kill her if she left him. In December 2000, the body of Mrs. King was found in an abandoned grave 30 miles from her home.
TOM PARFITT,
Washington Times.
Translation by Inopressa.ru