UK Not A Bed Of Roses For Everyone!

Ishtiaq Ahmed

London: People would give their arms and legs to get a chance to enter the UK. The stories of unscrupulous agents demanding figures of 6 to 7 million for a work visa to the UK are rife and many innocent people looking for better life opportunities abroad are getting caught in this nationwide scam.

It is not only that large sums of money are involved which people are having to sell their land, property, livestock, family assets,  borrow money from family, friends and take loans from loan sharks to pay for, it is also that people are having to take serious risks with their lives to escape the poverty at home.

It is to be noted that the work permits for the UK are only for limited categories, often requiring specialist skills that the UK is unable to provide from the local population. The employer has to satisfy the authorities that every effort has been made to recruit locally.

Where the work permits are issued there is no requirement from the British government other than the work permit and the passport fee and the cost of travelling. Ideally, the work permit should be paid by the employer leaving the applicant with the cost of the passport and the ticket. Even where the applicants are required to pay for the work permit it is usually not more than 400,000/ 500,000 at the exchange rate. Hence, the demands of 6 to 7 million are only by the rogue agents.

Anyway, the other route into the UK is by way of marriage. Families in Pakistan try to marry their sons and daughters in the UK often to their cousins or within the wider extended family with the sole intention of getting their sons and daughters there.

Sometimes, the parents of boys and girls in the UK try to persuade their sons and daughters to marry the sons and daughters of their brothers and sisters as a way of helping them.

We are finding that more than often these marriages of convenience do not work with massive family fallouts. Sons and daughters are coerced into marriages that neither party wants but under the weight of family pressure, they succumb as soon they are back in the UK, they refuse to honour the marriage vows and the consequences of which for everyone are clear to envisage.

The reasons for marriage breakdowns between the partners from Pakistan and the UK are varied and many but the incapability is perhaps the most important one. Differences in language, culture, social etiquette, education, and expectations top the list.

The consequences of marriage breakdown are dire and severe for the individuals concerned and their families often resulting in incriminations, fights, court suits, and lasting hatred eventually tearing the family apart.

Where the marriage breaks down in the first qualifying period for the permanent stay, the husband or the wife which ever from Pakistan faces the real possibility of being sent back to the further shame of the family back home.

The outcome of the marriage failure for a woman is much direr. There are frequent cases of family abuse, domestic violence from the husband and even from the other in-laws. In many cases, the women, not knowing the system and fearful of being sent back bears the abuse and the violence in silence not knowing who to trust and turn to for help. Because of this, many cases of this nature do not surface and get reported.

The plight of husbands from Pakistan many cases is no different as they have to toe the line of their in-laws and their wife who continuously holds the noose to the neck by threatening repatriation back to home.

However, there are successful cases of marriages between couples from Pakistan and UK but in most cases they are as a result of real effort from the couple, their in-laws and the wider family to make the marriage work or at least get off on positive footing. In the absence of this level of commitment and support more than often marriages form two different cultures and social environments with different expectations are doomed.

Why would any parent condemn his daughter  or son to life of enslavement and misery some thousands miles away  is beyond me. Maybe the answer is in the poverty and lack of opportunities at home and the false lure of the UK, not knowing that the UK maybe a  bed of roses  for some but for many it is nothing but a bed of thorns.