British MP accuses British-Bangladeshis of importing wives for disabled sons

A British MP has accused the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in the UK of importing wives from their home countries for their disabled sons. Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley in the West Midlands, said that she has dealt with “lots of cases” where the Bangladeshi and Pakistani community behaved “unacceptably” towards women. “Well, sorry, the British Pakistani-Bangladeshi community, certainly where I am, has issues about women’s roles in a family, in society,” she was quoted in The Times as saying. “The acceptability of going and getting a wife from abroad if your son is disabled, for example,” she continued, “As if he deserves to have a wife and we’ll just get one from Pakistan. That’s not okay in my book.” Phillips’ comments came in reference to her colleague, Sarah Champion MP, who quit the Labour shadow cabinet after writing a controversial article in The Sun about Pakistani and Muslim men abusing white girls. Phillips admitted that the article was crudely phrased. She lamented that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did not broker a deal to enable Champion to stay on in her position as shadow equalities minister. “It gives more power to people who go: ‘It’s political correctness gone mad,’ and that people like me are trying to protect the perpetrators,” Phillips further said. The Ann Craft Trust, which works with people with learning disabilities, said there was a “serious problem” among disabled British Asians being forced into marriage without giving their proper consent. Approximately one in 10 cases that are reported to the British government’s forced marriage unit concern people with learning disabilities. Research conducted by the Ann Craft Trust found that a large majority concerned those from South Asian communities. Assistant Professor of Social Work at Nottingham University Rachael Clawson, who is studying the issue, said: “We will see people trying to use this to get people in as a loophole. But the most common situation is that families really think they are doing their best for their [disabled] son or daughter by getting them a carer.”