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November 18, 2005
UK: Pakistani Muslim Marriage Habits Create Inbreeding
No, this is not a racist attack on Pakistani Muslims, but a sign that something is severely wrong with the traditional arranged marriages practised by many Muslims in Britain who have Pakistani origins.
UK Member of Parliament for Keighley and Ilkley, Ann Cryer, has urged British Asians to stop marrying their cousins, state both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. The results of a report she has commissioned make for alarming reading. Even though Pakistani births represent 3.4% of births nationally, the incidence of recessive disorders from this group accounts for 30% of all births nationally with these traits.
Speaking on BBC's Newsnight, she said "We address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity and we say it's a public health issue, therefore we have to get involved with persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle. I think this should be applied to the Asian community. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people."
"There is something very wrong going on. I think the sooner we start to have a debate and we start to encourage the Asian community to address it themselves by saying we have to stop this tradition of first-cousin marriages."
The Telegraph states that more than 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, and in areas such as Bradford, more than 75% of all Pakistani marriages involve first cousin unions. Most hospitals record 20-30 different recessive disorders amongst local children, but Bradford's Royal Infirmary has identified more than 140.
The variant genes which account for recessive defects are, in a normal union, only estimated to be present in a child of such a union in a likelihood of 100 to 1. In cases of marriages of first cousins, the odds increase to one in eight.
Trevor Philips, the Chairman of the UK's Racial Equality Commission argued in September that Britain was already developing in its urban areas segregated ghettoes. Migration Watch has said that arranged marriages between people originated from the Indian sub-continent, marrying imported spouses from the subcontinent, were fueling this segregation.
Arranged marriages also take place between Hindus and SIkhs who in similar ways regularly import spouses from the Indian sub-continent to Britain. The issue of recessive disorders not occurring so frequently in these unions is probably because marriage between first cousins from these communities is frowned upon.
Habits which are ingrained will be hard to break. The Telegraph quotes one Pakistani British citizen. She says of her marriage to her cousin "You have an understanding, you have the same family history. It's just a nicer emotional feel."
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 18, 2005 7:30 AM
Comments
Nice emotional feel.
Why if that isn't sound Islamic theology then the Church of Scientology is not really a religion!
Maybe she was brought up in a Unitarian Mosque?
Posted by: Tito at November 20, 2005 12:16 AM
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