THE Commission on Filipino Overseas (CFO)-Davao Region intensified its efforts to put an end to the Mail-Order-Spouse scheme in the country as some Filipinos who were forced to marry foreigners experienced domestic violence.
CFO-Davao Region officer Maria Camille Lacaba, during the Kapehan sa Dabaw at The Annex of SM City Davao, said there are 5,991 cases of Mail-Order-Spouse in the country since 2015.
The country already has the Republic Act 6955 of 1990 or the Anti-Mail-Order Spouse Law, however, illegal marriage brokers still continue to operate.
The Mail-Order-Spouse marriage scheme is the selling of locally born person to foreigners in exchange of marriage.
Lacaba said the selling price for this scheme is between P500,000 to P1 million, which sparked the interest of many Filipinos, both men and women, to engage in the illegal business due to poverty.
The mediators of the illegal marriage scheme, she said, are syndicates who fake marriage documents to expedite the negotiations with the foreign nationals and match them with their workers.
Most of the Filipinos who are involved with this scheme are women, 70 percent of them experienced physical abuse and sexual violence based on their assessment from 2015.
"Once they arrive in a particular country, these women do not have legal papers with them which are risky on their part. Some even were resold to other men by foreigners who brought them there," Lacaba said.
The country that has the most number of Mail-Order-Spouse cases is in South Korea as the scheme is legal in their country. It is also common in Australia, Japan, and some parts of the United States of America.
CFO is working closely with other countries such as South Korea and Japan to coordinate with them regarding the illegal marriage transaction between Filipinos and their citizens.
"Although we find it difficult to engage consistently as we know that this country find this legal, we are trying our best to educate them how it is in our country for them to understand our purpose to negotiate," she said.
Lacaba also said CFO counter-checks the married visa applicants by asking them to present complete marriage documents to ensure the legality of the marriage between Filipinos and foreigners.
She added that all CFO regional offices already have watch lists of illegal foreign petitioners in their database as one of their means to track those involved in the illegal marriage scheme.