Forced marriages and marriages for sale

The Swedish Migration Board is once again on the limelight for failing to do a proper investigation into an arranged marriage that took place in Iran whereby the supposed bride was brought to Sweden, wherein said marriage did not last the legally-mandated two-year period to allow a permanent residence permit. The Iranian woman is now due for deportation back to Iran where she allegedly faces death threat from her own family.

The Migration Board has become more generous in its assumption that Swedes and holders of permanent residence permits who marries abroad, or finds a partner abroad and returns to Sweden "stays married" because they found love. Indeed it is naive to pursue such an assumption as basis for a migration policy. It smacks of ignorance of the thriving marriage business, whereby a Swedish national or holder of a residence permit can enter into a marriage contract for the cost of no less than 100,000 Swedish crowns. Poor parents in some remote villages in Asia, Africa and even Latin-America could easily welcome the idea of marrying off their daughters, or sons in exchange for hard currency.

The waiting time of two years to prove serious marital intent may protect the women from immediate deportation but it does not control the flourishing marriage business nor put a hinder to parentally-arranged marriages. Nothing is more detrimental to women than to be forced into a loveless marriage, a marriage where violence and domestic abuses happen.

According to Dagens Nyheter ( June 10, 2008) there were around 16,000 persons last year who were granted temporary permanent residences and a large number were women from Thailand. It is pre-supposed that even in these cases, some were made out of a business arrangement. It is a known fact that in Thailand's remote villages, poor parents sell their daughters if not to marriages, then to brothels and sex procurers.

It is lamentable that the Migration Board should adopt an indifferent attitude towards the real possibility of human trafficking disguised as marriages, or that it should presume that nationals bringing potential brides to Sweden are motivated by the noblest emotion called love.