O blog Human Trafficking [Tráfico de Humanos, en] por Amanda Kloer – hospedado em Change.org, nos Estados Unidos – declarou vitoriosa [en] sua campanha para que empresa de cartões de crédito Diners Club International [en] parasse de fazer negócios com uma empresa de Singapura que vende noivas vietnamitas por encomenda. Mais de 800 pessoas assinaram um abaixo-assinado para fazer com que a Diners Club parasse de facilitar a compra de mulheres para casamento.

O abaixo-assinado online dizia:

Human beings should not be bought or sold, and they certainly shouldn't be part of a payment plan, a “blue light special”, or a clearance sale. Mail order brides are not only extremely vulnerable to human trafficking, but also domestic violence, abuse, rape, and exploitation. While creating a payment plan to purchase a human being is ethically and philosophically disgusting, it also reduces the economic barrier to buying a bride. Removing that barrier allows traffickers to acquire women using less capital than they needed before. It opens the door to a new socio-economic class of criminals to buy and exploit these women.

Noivas por encomenda não são ilegais na Singapura, e nem na maior parte do mundo. Este mês, The Electric New Paper, de Singapura, publicou uma série de artigos a respeito da Vietnam Brides International [Noivas do Vietnã International], incluindo um sobre o plano de pagamento mensal da empresa no valor de 167 dólares com o cartão Diners Club, e outro sobre a variação nos preços para noivas, dependendo de onde elas vêm. A jornalista, Crystal Chan, também falou com o diretor-geral assistente (de vendas e marketing) da Diners Club (Singapura), quem disse, “Nós não fazemos um julgamento moral os negócios estabelecidos com nossos parceiros comerciantes. Para nós, o mais importante é a legitimidade do negócio”.

Desde o abaixo-assinado, a empresa de cartão de crédito mudou seu discurso e escreveu a seguinte carta para Change.org:

“On behalf of Diners Club International, which is part of Discover Financial Services, we appreciate [your] bringing this specific merchant relationship with a Diners franchisee to our attention. Formal steps have been taken to terminate the relationship [with Vietnam Brides International].”

Em Change.org, Amanda Kloer conclui:

This statement is telling, and it says that you all made a huge difference. Your letters made Diners Club aware of the partnership one of their franchisees had made with a mail order bride service. You helped keep an important financial protection in place for women at risk of trafficking and abuse via the mail order bride industry. You refused to accept that an international company can treat and finance women like objects. This is one of those rare moments when you can see the important changes your actions bring, and the difference you make in the world.

Thank you for bringing this issue to Diners Club's attention. And thank you Diners Club International for making the important decision to protect women and girls from exploitation. Together, we are the change we wish to see.

Em abril, Global Voices vinculou uma publicação [en] feita por Alvinology [en] em Singapura, sobre um filme da Al Jazeera a respeito das noivas por encomenda. O filme conta a história de duas garotas que vão a Singapura em busca de uma nova vida.

Alvinology indaga por quê homens procuram noivas estrangeiras quando se tem homens e mulheres em Singapura. Ele escreve:

In the video, a Vietnamese bride can be “purchased” on-the-spot for S$10,000. The girl on the right was only 18-years-old when she was sold to a 35 year-old Singaporean man who went to the matchmaking agency to choose his bride together with his mom.

What’s even more humiliating, the girls were made to visit a clinic in Singapore to get a certificate verifying their virginity before they can be sold.

While both the Vietnamese girls and the Singaporean men who entered into such marriages are willing adults, I wonder how many of such couples end up truly happy.