Academic Research Archives

This page contains academic research and government reports on mail order brides, international dating, and related subjects. The amount of disinformation out there about the modern mail order bride industry is stunning, because many angry feminist studies professors and well-meaning humanitarians have taken the term "mail order bride" literally and assume that men in the United States and other Western countries are ordering sex slaves off the Internet and that is just NOT what's happening.

Of course, the professors know that, but they are incensed about the supposed "power imbalance" in the relationship and the "neo-colonial monetization of women in economically underdeveloped countries." The humanitarians know that the mail order bride agencies are almost identical to mainstream Internet dating sites like Match.com. They know that the international dating agencies reviewed on International Love Scout are legitimate businesses, but they also know that it is easy to attract publicity to help fight the kidnapping and trafficking of women that goes on around the world by tying it to the term mail order brides.

So, on this page we have assembled the best academic and government research available focusing on researchers who have actually taken the time to speak to the men and women who are using international dating to find their life mate and are not just theorizing.

Though at ILS we believe that international dating can be great for both men and women we also know that there are pitfalls for both sexes and we are going to use this page to highlight the most authoritative sources of information.

I gotta warn ya, alot of this stuff is pretty dry and boring, but we feel it's important to give you ALL the available information. So, if you have some spare time and a pot full of real strong coffee then go ahead and read the dissertations and papers. Decide for yourself if pursuing a beautiful young woman from Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa or Asia is the best way for you to find the happiness you are looking for. 

Scholarly Research About International Dating & Mail Order Brides

Human Trafficking: Mail-Order Bride Abuses - Hughes Testimony to US Senate July 2004

This is PDF file that records the testimony of Donna M. Hughes, Ph.D. Professor and Carlson Endowed Chair of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island - given to the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 13, 2004. And if you want to see our take on this report you can read it here.