A study exposes the shock rate of 'extreme' inbreeding in the UK

 

The pocket of England where up to 46% of women of Pakistani heritage are having children with their cousins - as study exposes the shock rate of 'extreme' inbreeding in the UK.

Cousin relationships are no longer a 'majority' in Bradford's female Pakistani community amid rising awareness of the birth defect risks.

A decade ago, a Government-funded surveillance project found that 62 per cent of Pakistani heritage women were in consanguineous relationships.  

This figure has since dropped to 46 per cent, researchers say. t comes amid a push to ban first-cousins from marrying.  Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed drew huge flak yesterday after speaking against the motion. A senior Tory said it was 'shocking' that an MP would 'defend this revolting practice'.

Experts began tracking the prevalence of consanguinity in Bradford – home to one of the UK's biggest Pakistani communities – in the late noughties.  Almost 12,500 pregnant women were quizzed about their relationship status with the father of their child. 

The Born in Bradford study was later repeated with another cohort of 2,400 women between 2016 and 2019.

Final results were published last month by Wellcome Open Research, a platform ran by the prestigious Wellcome Trust.  Sharing an earlier version of the results with the BBC last year, Dr John Wright, chief investigator, spoke of the 'significant shift' seen in just under a decade.

He described cousin marriage as having gone from a 'majority activity to now being just about a minority activity'. Dr Wright added: 'The effect will be fewer children with congenital anomalies.'

The Born in Bradford figures, it was said, may indicate that the numbers of Pakistani people marrying cousins across the UK as a whole is also falling.

Reasons behind the fall are thought to include high educational attainment, stricter immigration rules and changes in family dynamics. Writing in their study, the team said: 'It may be we are seeing generational changes, and newly evolving societal norms. 

'But these changes need to be monitored to see if they are indications of a lasting change and they need to be considered in other settings where consanguinity is common to see how widespread these reductions in consanguinity are.'

More than half of residents living in the Bradford West constituency, represented by Labour MP Naz Shah, are Pakistani. The figure is 36 per cent in Bradford East and nearly 17 per cent in Bradford South – the city's two other constituencies. 

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