I used to know a woman that came to America through a type of human trafficking. I remember when I first moved to Ohio that I met a girl, Larissa. She told me she moved from Latvia with her mom, Alla. They both spoke Russian. We became friends and she told me her story of how she arrived to America.
It was very unusual for me hearing the story at that time because she said her mom was a mail-order bride. Her step-dad, Rick, found Alla on the Internet. They arrived sometime in winter. As soon as she met him at the airport with Larissa they couldn’t believe their eyes. They told me their mouths dropped. Rick was shorter than Alla, looked like a bum, had gloves with cigarette burns in them, and didn’t even shave. To top that off he had a high-pitched voice. I mean, come on! What kind of guy would go meet his “bride to be” looking like that?
Anyway, he took them to his apartment. It was a two-bedroom apartment. Alla asked Rick where he worked and he said at a store, Kroger's. She realized what she had gotten herself into. Now she had to marry this guy just to stay in the United States. They had a quick ceremony. She wouldn’t even want to sleep in the same room, let alone bed, with him. He would always distance himself and stay in his room always on his computer. Alla said that she even witnessed him talking to the computer.
Things kept getting worse. Alla and Rick would get into fights. He was very controlling, too. I remember during the winter months that the apartment was cold. Whenever Alla tried to turn up the heat and Rick would come up and turn it down. It got to the point that he bought a small clear plastic box and screwed it into the wall around the thermostat with a little key lock on it, so that only he could regulate the temperature. This was because he said the heat bill was too high. He kept it at around 65°F. Every time I would come over they would be fighting over something stupid. He wouldn’t even let her out of the apartment unless she would tell him exactly where she was going.
Of course, Alla would lie to him and say she was going to the store and would go to help agencies for abused wives. She has tried reporting him to get out of that relationship. She and Larissa did move out of his apartment and into another one. In the end she ended up with him and moved with him to a different part of Ohio. I don’t know what she is up to currently. I haven’t seen them for about 6 years.
Really. These things actually happen?
**Save English as a first language, yo.
The "mail-order bride" industry has its problems, certainly. But erroneous reporting, such as this, is just as problematic. "She told me ..." tells me upfront that what follows lacks fact-checking, but I still have to ask: Do you really believe it could happen like this? I'm not disparaging or aiming to insult. I'd be interested to know, as one progressive to another, because this happens to be an area of study for me, and I'm curious if this is a wide-held belief, as I suspect it is. Do you believe a man can "traffic" in Russian women with a few simple clicks on a marriage agency website? That with a simple cash transaction, he can order a woman and wait for her delivery? No one is "sold," sight unseen or otherwise. A woman from the Former Soviet Union can't get to America without a visa, and unlike her western European counterparts, she'll be denied a tourist visa because of our class-conscious requirements (she is assumed to be a risk to over-stay her visa -- read, become an illegal alien -- unless she has an upper-class income or owns property in her home country). That means she can only get to America if she's been sponsored for a visa, such as a fiancee visa, or if she's already married to an American. To receive the former visa, she has to have met the man who is her sponsor, meaning he's already met her in Russia, and she has to have passed an interview at the US Embassy in Moscow, proving that this is not a fradulent relationship, as any case of trafficking would appear to be. So obviously, your mother and daughter above couldn't have been shocked by Rick's height or anything else, because they'd no doubt met him and been in contact with him for many, many months.
Your Russian bride's daughter is clearly not honest. Yes, she could only come with her mother on a fiancee visa and they have to have met previously to apply for a fiancee visa.
Check http://www.womenrussia.com for more info, it's a huge informational website with lots of true life stories.
So, she only married this guy to get into the States?
She trafficked herself - no one else put her there.
All I'm doing is telling HER story from HER mouth. I am not saying what she did/didn't do is right or wrong. I KNOW THIS PEOPLE. All I'm doing is telling you HER story. So, please don't go crazy on me..End of Story.
its unfortunate, but it is true. They also have that where I come from. Its like a game of luck. its either you get lucky or you strike out with the guys. But its still unfortunate.