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Battered mail-order brides seek rights
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- It took Natasha a day trip to Moscow to find the American husband she had dreamed of. It took the next six years to get out of the nightmare that followed.
A music teacher from central Russia, she was one of 200 Russian women who patiently lined up at a Moscow restaurant to meet 10 American men at a gathering hosted by a mail-order bride agency.
She spoke no English but immediately caught the eye of one of the men, 16 years her senior. He was handsome and said he wanted the same things she did: a loving family and children.
They went to museums and the theater with an interpreter, and he started the paperwork to bring her to the United States as his wife.
The fairy tale ended eight months later.
Natasha, who would only be identified using a pseudonym, had barely set foot in the United States when her new husband began to abuse her sexually, disappeared for weeks at a stretch, threatened anyone who tried to befriend her and forced her to sign a post-nuptial agreement.
Thrown out of their house after two years of abuse, Natasha was left to fend for herself in an unfamiliar country with minimal English skills and no legal documents to work.