E-Paper
Migration to Britain for arranged marriages peaking
An anti-immigration group says that brides and grooms from South Asia doubled between 1996 and 2001.
Migration of young brides and grooms from the Indian subcontinent to Britain for arranged marriages has touched an all-time high.
Migration Watch, an anti-immigration group, says such migrants now total about 22,000. The figure, it said, had doubled in five years.
The Home Office says it cannot confirm the figure, nor does it think it is the government's job to decide whom its citizens should marry.
A report from Migration Watch said most such migrants were women from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who head to Britain for traditional Muslim or Hindu weddings.
This migration, the report said, was changing the face of many British cities, including Bradford, Manchester and London.
It called for tougher measures to stop people from coming here for arranged marriages and claimed that most young Asians would back such a move.
Migration Watch chairman Andrew Green, a former senior diplomat, said: "When primary immigration from this region came to an end in the early 1970s, it was assumed that family reunion would tail off as families integrated.
"However, this has not occurred. The custom of arranged marriage has continued in a process that has become self-reinforcing."
He said figures showed that brides and grooms from the Indian subcontinent alone doubled between 1996 and 2001 to 22,000 a year.
Green called for a "fundamental review" of the laws allowing foreign brides and grooms to come to Britain.
But a Home Office spokesman said: "Arranged marriage is a legitimate and central part of some British Asian communities - a culture the government respects and values.
"We need to make the distinction between this and forced marriages, which we do not tolerate and are working with communities to crack down on.
"Figures for 2003 show a fall in husbands and wives coming from the Indian subcontinent. Husbands were down 115 to 4,445 and wives down 435 to 7,260."
