Dispatches: When Cousins Marry

[Paneer Monster]

I just watched Dispatches: When Cousins Marry. - There are 24 days left to view this video.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3116215

It is a very interesting documentary.

I know I am a hypercritic for saying this, but here goes: please do not hate on Pakistanis or Muslims in this thread. Ill health (whether genetic or otherwise) is one thing we should not mock. I also understand there are several jokes about Muslims marrying their cousins, please refrain from posting them here.

Dispatches reveals the tragic consequences of first cousin marriage in Britain. Every year such marriages cause hundreds of children to be born with terrible disabilities; one third of whom are so ill that they die before they are five years old.

The practice is most common in Britain's Pakistani community, in which more than 50% of people marry their first cousin, and in Bradford 75% of ethnic Pakistanis follow the tradition.

It is also common in some Middle Eastern and East African communities here, and in the UK's Bangladeshi community, nearly a quarter of people marry their first cousins.

It also happens in the white British community: Dispatches features a couple, first-cousins-once-removed, whose daughter died of a genetic disease.

The medical risks include infant mortality, birth defects, learning difficulties, blindness, hearing impairment and metabolic disorders. As adults, the offspring of these relationships also risk sporadic abortions or infertility.

Reporter Tazeen Ahmad meets affected families, including one with three children with serious degenerative genetic diseases. Tazeen's own grandparents were first cousins: five of their children died before the age of ten, and three of her uncles were deaf.

Dispatches questions why no major national publicity campaign warns of these health risks. At-risk couples in some areas are offered genetic counselling, with some being offered selection of embryos or terminations, but as only 40% of recessive disorders can be medically tested for, this is of limited use.

Even talking about the practice is controversial. And, although many British studies have established the risks, people still deny the dangers and extol the benefits of marrying within the family. But others within the community say the risks should be publicised.

[Jagdeep Kaur]

This post grabbed my attention straight away- definitely the kind of post that would provoke "paki bashing." I could not find anything within Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji that referred to this century old issue. It’s so easy to say chall koi na..they'll learn by themselves the raised chances of genetically inherited disease by marrying first cousins by themselves..and I am sure many of us will be shocked or irritated now we know exactly what our taxes go towards.. but should we not care for our fellow humans? Or because the impact on the Sikh community is minimal as a whole...is it ok to turn a blind eye?