Sunday, 11 March 2012

UK Husband, wife or civil partner visa laws finally changed!

A couple of years back the government in the UK decided that to combat the growing problem with forced marriages they would introduce a law which denies entry to a spouse or civil partner if the settled British citizen is under 21 years of age.


When Clark and I saw this law we despaired! With me being 4 years away from my 21st birthday at the time, it put a downer on all our plans as we realised the bloody (but well-meaning...I guess) government had placed an impenetrable barrier around me, stopping Clark and I from being able to have a life together. Cor blimey, talk about making things near hopeless! Not only did we have the distance,our youth and our lack of funds to contend with, now there was also the time span we had to be apart!


We were not the only ones. Over 5,000 genuine couples each year were denied their right to a married life. What really got my back up about this was that the number of genuine couples denied togetherness was 100 times more than the number of forced marriages prevented...okay, so slight exaggeration but just thinking about it makes my blood boil!


It was a denial of our human rights but what could we have done? We had to resign ourselves to long-term separation...


That was until the supreme court, the Red-Blue blur that came to our rescue, forced the government to change this blatant contradiction of human rights and so finally a piece of good news! 


What do you think about the government's back-track? Does it affect you and your husband/wife/civil partner?


I look forward to hearing your thoughts! 



No comments:

Post a Comment