IRAM RAMZAN: My personal mom tried to marry me off to my second cousin… I do not care if it is common in different international locations, it is disgusting that this abhorrent observe continues to be allowed in Britain

The subject of marriage first came up when I was 19 or 20, when my mother sat me down at our home in Oldham and said ominously: ‘I need to talk to you.’ She told me that my late grandmother had always wanted me to marry her nephew back in Kashmir.

I had met him once or twice on a family visit to my grandparents’ village, though our conversations had been barely more than an exchange of pleasantries.

He had seemed decent and respectful. But did I want to marry my second cousin? Absolutely not! The proposition was revolting.

He was much older and didn’t speak English. He’d lived his life in a rural village while I had been born in the UK and was studying at university. What would we have in common? I was amazed Mum had even suggested it.

Marriage was also a means for him to get a spousal visa to England, to get a job and send money back home. How romantic. Indeed, I remember Pakistani girls from my school who, not long after they completed their GCSEs, were married to a cousin from ‘back home’ for that reason.

Naturally, I refused, and nothing more was said. But I was reminded of the conversation – shocking then, amusing now – last week when Tory MP Richard Holden called for a ban on marriages between first cousins.

Isn’t it banned already? No. While marriage and sexual activity between siblings, parents and children is illegal, it is allowed between first cousins.

Holden argued that cousin marriages have been linked to a higher rate of birth defects and can also ‘reinforce negative structures and control women’.

But opposing Holden’s proposal was Iqbal Mohamed, the independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, who said that while ‘freedom of women must be protected at all times’, he did not believe outlawing cousin marriages would be ‘effective or enforceable’.

He said the practice – ‘extremely common’ in the Middle East and south Asia – is ‘something very positive’ because it ‘helps build family bonds and put families on a more secure financial foothold’.

Mohamed stressed that cousin marriages shouldn’t be stigmatised. Well, actually, yes – they should be stigmatised. I find it depressing in the 21st century that this is even up for debate.

Where was this conversation decades ago, when more than half of British Pakistanis were marrying their first or second cousins?

In tiptoeing around the subject for so long – no doubt through a fear of trampling over cultural sensitivities – we’ve condemned scores of children to birth defects having been born of two blood- related parents. 

This must not continue. Of course, I’m not blind to the fact that coming from a family where cousin marriages were the norm, half of us wouldn’t exist! Nor do I believe in general that the State should interfere in people’s relationships.

However, on this issue, the Government does need to step in.

There are many cultural imports to Britain from Pakistan that can be applauded, but cousin marriage is not one. In Pakistan, 62 per cent of unions are ‘consanguineous’ (between blood relatives) – the highest proportion in the world – as the practice thrives in tribal societies where people identify more with their clan than country.

While marrying within the family undoubtedly strengthens tribal bonds, it creates cultural siloes where thought for the nation is relegated in favour of what’s best for your tribe. These societies are largely conservative where interaction between the two genders is limited. Western-style dating is not encouraged and marriages are arranged by parents.

Sadly, I’ve witnessed in my own wider family both men and women forced to stay in unhappy marriages lest they be accused of causing a rift.

There’s also a religious element, as Islam doesn’t ban the practice. The Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima, married Ali, her father’s cousin. It’s why many supporters of such marriages are reluctant to shun the practice; they would see it as ‘un-Islamic’. Furthermore, as Holden alluded, cousin marriages can be a way of exercising coercive control.

Too many women from the Subcontinent have been married off to British men of Pakistani heritage only to find themselves as glorified maids left to look after their ageing in-laws. A ban could potentially protect more vulnerable women.

But the biggest objection to cousin marriages – and why they make the headlines – is because of the health risks.

For every 100 babies born to related couples, six have a genetic ailment, while the figure is three in 100 for those born to unrelated parents. Problems include blindness, deafness, blood disorders, heart or kidney failure, lung and liver problems and complex neurological disorders, all of which cost the NHS millions of pounds.

Aisha Ali-Khan was one of seven children born to Pakistani parents in the former mill town of Keighley, West Yorkshire.

Sadly, three of her siblings died young: her twin brother was just two, another aged four and the third had cerebral palsy and did not live to see his 18th birthday. The boys were all born with serious health problems, including hearing impairments and epilepsy, and needed mobility aides, such as wheelchairs or strollers. Why? Her parents were first cousins.

Aisha credits the Born In Bradford (BIB) research study in highlighting the scale of the problem in Britain. It set out to discover why so many children born in the Yorkshire city died young or had profound disabilities.

A total of 12,453 pregnant women were recruited to the project between 2007 and 2010. Researchers discovered that while 1.7 per cent of babies in England and Wales are born with a birth defect, the figure in Bradford was 3 per cent. Within the Pakistani sub-group, 77 per cent of those with birth defects were born to parents in consanguineous marriages.

The bigger problem arises when generation after generation continues marrying cousins, which can lead to more severe illnesses.

In 2021, Birmingham City Council announced an emergency taskforce to investigate high levels of infant mortality after it emerged deaths of newborns were twice the national average. 

Its report found a fifth of infant deaths were a result of consanguineous marriages. Babies of Pakistani and South Asian heritage were disproportionately affected, with one in 188 stillborn compared to one in every 295 white babies.

There is, however, hope that this abhorrent practice is ebbing away, as younger Muslims eschew the dated traditions of their parents, and the health issues become more widely known.

In 2023, a follow-up study to the BIB project found 46 per cent of babies born in Bradford had related parents (down from 62 per cent a decade before). The fall was steeper in a sub-group of mothers born in the UK – from 60 per cent to 36 per cent. Still, too many babies are being exposed to a greater risk of congenital defect.

It is only by making cousin marriages a criminal offence that we will rid Britain of this pernicious practice. It will give vulnerable young daughters of overbearing parents the confidence to say no.

If that incurs the wrath of the hand-wringing keyboard warriors who feel that it is culturally insensitive or even racist to do so, then so be it. Would they marry their own cousins or allow their children to do so? Somehow, I doubt it.