Polygamy: A special investigation into how Muslim men can exploit the benefits system

 

Ghulam is a taxi driver who lives in Blackburn, a once-booming textile town in Lancashire. He has a terrace house near his local mosque (one of 53 in the area), a silver Nissan car and a very complex private life.

For he has so many children that he struggles to remember their names, and five wives from various countries, including Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and his own birthplace, Pakistan.

Ghulam’s latest bride is a shy 20-year-old called Hafeza. He brought her to Britain from Morocco, soon after his 45th birthday earlier this year. They married in an Islamic wedding ceremony called ‘the Nikah’ in her village, with Hafeza’s pleased parents among the guests. 

Thirty miles across the Pennines in Yorkshire, pizza delivery driver Wasim, 27, has an equally complicated domestic life.

He lives in a part of Dewsbury called Savile Town, a network of 11 terrace streets dominated by one of the biggest mosques in Europe, where most residents are Asian with origins in Pakistan or India.

Wasim has three wives, the first of whom lives with him and their three teenage sons. His other two wives have separate houses in Savile Town, one down the road and another round the corner. He visits each two nights a week.

The women have had several of Wasim’s children and he hopes the youngest bride (aged 19) will soon present him with another baby. 

I learned of Ghulam and Wasim this week while investigating a subject that is taboo in politically correct Britain. It is the huge rise of bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) in our Muslim communities.

The issue was recently bravely highlighted by Baroness Flather, a crossbench life peer who was herself born in Lahore, now part of Pakistan.

She warned the Lords (and also wrote an article for the Mail on the subject) about how our shambolic benefits system is being exploited by men hailing from Pakistan and other Muslim nations who indulge in multiple marriages — with taxpayers forced to foot the bill.

As Baroness Flather explained: ‘The wives are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers, and are therefore entitled to a full range of lone parent payments."

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