Rebekah Roberts entered the United States as a mail order bride. At 28 years of age, she considered herself pretty lucky when the magazine she paid five hundred dollars to advertise herself called that they have found her a match. The 58 year old man who picked her from a list of other women was a hard drinking man, who has had three failed marriages. He told Rebekah over the phone that he was now a changed man after serving a year in prison for domestic violence and abuse of his third wife. The fault was not his, he insisted. Rebekah believed him. Besides, getting to the United States will provide a great escape from poverty in her own country. Mr. Roberts told her that jobs were plentiful in the USA, and that she had nothing to worry about. The young woman thought about all the possibilities and the opportunities of sending money back to help her siblings.

Getting the visa to the USA to meet her groom was relatively easy, the only requirement according to the US Embassy official was that she should be married in 90 days after she arrived or she would be in violation of her visa. Changing her mind after arrival was more than just having cold feet it would mean a return to poverty and the old life and so Rebekah got married in the local court house with nobody that she knew around. A year after the wedding she was pregnant with twins and was unable to find work because of her poor English skills. She totally depended on the husband who threatened her constantly with deportation. The beatings soon followed along with emotional and verbal torture. She had reasons to be afraid of her life because the husband locked her inside the house whenever he was away. One day, she managed to escape from the home that had then become a prison and ran to a neighbor. She managed to narrate to the neighbor in broken English her ordeal. She told the neighbor that she had difficulty sleeping and was very hungry. She cried constantly and begged to be taken to a place of safety. She expressed her desire to return to her mother in her own country.

Rebekah and her one year old twins have been brought to an agency where you are the social worker.

a) What issues do you identify in this case?

b) Describe the biological, social and psychological milestones you would look for on the twins.

c). Describe the concerns that this issue raises on the children.

d). The Mail Order Bride Law established after WWII to help GIs returning from Europe bring back their foreign spouses has been described as old and antiquated and as a gift to men who can afford to pay middlemen import and exploit poor women do you agree? Why or why not?