A/HRC/21/41 B. Sale of wives 66. The sale of wives, a practice by which a woman is forced to marry several times so that her family acquires money or property, has been reported in Europe, Asia and Latin America (E/CN.4/2002/83, para. 59). 67. The sale of wives also manifests itself in the form of mail-order marriages and paper marriages. In the case of mail-order marriages, women from developing countries in East and South Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America advertise themselves in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet for marriage outside their countries of origin, usually to men in developed countries. In many instances, the women are economically vulnerable and advertise themselves in the hope of improving their economic situation. 68. Upon the recommendation of the Commission on Human Rights, a report on abolishing slavery and its contemporary forms was published in 2002 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the report, it is stated that women who leave their families to marry a man in a foreign country that they have not previously visited are vulnerable to a wide range of forms of exploitation prohibited by existing international standards. The involvement of commercial agents in organizing marriages does not in itself appear to be unacceptable, but if the agent makes payments to the bride’s parents or others, the arrangement would come close to infringing the prohibition on the sale of women for marriage in the Supplementary Slavery Convention. As brides in a foreign country, the women’s vulnerability is increased by the fact that they have no family or friends to support them if they require assistance. In addition, in some countries obtaining the right to residency as a spouse is a long, drawn-out process that may take years. A wife who leaves her husband is unable to seek assistance for fear of deportation or imprisonment. 69. Paper marriages are those in which the marriages take place officially, often for the woman to obtain a residency permit, but the man and woman do not live together subsequently as husband and wife. The wife is often made to earn money for a third person through income-generating activities such as prostitution. C. Wife inheritance 70. In societies in which women are considered vulnerable because they have no male protectors, the levirate, a custom by which a man may be obliged to marry his brother’s widow, can be used to expose a widow to mental, physical and sexual abuse in the name of tradition. Most recently, the practice has been highlighted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as an issue to be addressed in the Congo (CEDAW/C/COG/CO/6, para. 15). VII. Impact of servile marriage on girls and women 71. If a woman refuses marriage, she can be subject to character assassination or kidnapping by the man or his family to force her into marriage or to rape her. Bride kidnapping, a practice by which a bride is forcefully abducted and married, sometimes occurs in Kyrgyzstan and is often accompanied by physical and sexual violence (CEDAW/C/KGZ/CO/3, paras. 21 and 22). In many cases, girls and women endure years of constant abuse that sometimes leads to death at the hands of their relatives, their husbands or their husbands’ families. Girls and women are also encouraged or forced by their husbands or their husbands’ families to commit suicide. 72. Often overlooked is the psychological pressure placed on the girl or woman because of constant criticism and verbal abuse from her husband or his family, which makes her 13