A new law is under discussion at home. The questoin is whether to allow immigrants only get a wife/husband if they finish either 3 extra years of school, after the 10 compulsory years of school Norway has for every citizen, or 3 years of work. This makes it more or less impossible to go to e.g. Pakistan and bring a future husband/wife to Norway before you are 18/19 years. Is this discriminating? I don´t think it is. Does that make me a racist? Some political parties will prohibit bringing husband/wifes from country of origin until the Norwegian citizen is 21. I don´t have a good argument why I don´t think it is racist, but it is only when you are 18 you are allowed to marry without your parents consent, any nationality, in Norway. My view of immigration is perhaps somewhat conservative. And now I think, prohibit marrying before you are 18 -- that is basically the implication of this proposed law, is perhaps to go to far.. Politicians want to stall the amount of parents-organised marriages (what is that called?) and think this may be the solution. The implication being that they think there are too many immigrants coming to Norway... hmmmm, I am not sure if I agree with all this. But is it racist??
-- later:
Apparently, it violates a principle according to the UN Decleration of Human Rights that there should not be a special age limit of marriage. Not having seen the paragraph itself, translated form Norwegian, makes it sounds quite arbitrary. I guess, though, this is not such a good idea. What do you think?
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Norwegian immigrant politics
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I'm pretty sure those restrictions are fair, I can't really imagine anyone leaving Norway at 16/17 to find a husband/wife outside the EU and wish to marry them before they were 18 anyway. Perhaps those restrictions could be relaxed somewhat if the foreign national partner was already a legal resident of Norway, or at least have a temporary work visa. That would seem more likely than a 16 year old going abroad and getting married!
And I don't think it counts as racism, as you aren't talking about a particular race. Were your views much more extreme, you could be classed as xenophobic, but they aren't, so you can't be :-)
The problem is with arranged marriage/forced marriage. It is believed that if one is older, one will be more able to resist the pressure put upon one by one's family to get married. This is why the age limit is being pushed upwards. I.e. if one is 24, it is believed that one will be more capable of resisting such pressure than when one is 18. Another reason to push the age up, is to avoid parents' using their ability to give consent to a marriage of minors, thereby by-passing the free will of the future spouses entirely.
The problem with such policies comes when young people who meet abroad want to marry and bring their spouse back to Norway, they can't easily do so. As a Norwegian student abroad, I have very little income in Norway. I am therefore seen to be unable to support a spouse on my own, and would not be able to bring back a wife from the US or the UK, regardless of how much we might be in love with one another. As most forced marriages are perceived to be with cousins from Pakistan, the progressive thinkers in the Progress party (FrP) suggested that if the future spouse if from the EEC, the US, Canada, and countries with a culture similar to Norway's, such restrictions would not apply.
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