The deaths of more than two children a week in England are linked to their parents being closely related.
Mortality records show that cousin marriage was a ‘contributory factor’ in 128 child deaths during the 12 months to March 2024, a higher annual tally than seven years ago.
Deaths of children with parents who are close relatives average 2.47 a week, according to the data, which was prepared for the National Health Service in England.
This surpasses the murder rate of one child per week across England and Wales, according to homicide figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Cousin marriage, or consanguinity, is popular among couples from South Asian and Islamic communities, particularly those with Pakistani heritage.
It is a tradition brought from their home countries to protect family wealth, culture, ethnic identity, religious belief and extended kinship.
But the practice can have far-reaching medical consequences. British Pakistani families account for under 4 per cent of births, yet their offspring suffer around a third of child genetic problems – including fatal skin, brain and muscle conditions – according to the NHS and academics contributing to a major study in Bradford, where cousin marriages are common.
Mortality records show that cousin marriage was a ‘contributory factor’ in 128 child deaths during the 12 months to March 2024
A row over cousin marriages reached a peak last week when Tory MP Richard Holden called for government action to ban them. He said the NHS should stop ‘taking the knee’ to damaging and oppressive cultural practices, including the weddings of close cousins.
The MP was reacting to a report published by NHS England’s Education Programme which suggested that first-cousin marriage had ‘benefits’, including ‘stronger extended family support system and economic advantages’. The report, condemned as ‘woke’ by critics, admitted that such weddings increased the chance of genetic or congenital abnormality in children.
But it asserted that other factors such as births to older or very young parents, smoking, alcohol use and IVF also contributed, ‘none of which’ were banned in the United Kingdom. It has since been removed from websites.
It was reported yesterday that, according to the latest mortality figures, more baby deaths are linked to cousin marriages than to drug abuse in pregnancy.
A separate analysis linked communities with high rates of cousin marriage to substantially higher claims for disability benefits.
Two Scandinavian countries have either outlawed cousin marriage, or plan to. In Norway, it became illegal last year. Sweden is expected to ban it next year.
Many of the children involved die soon after birth.
Thousands more from consanguineous marriages survive, thanks to the skill and care of NHS doctors – but with appalling physical or mental problems. These include low IQs, blindness, deafness, blood ailments, heart or kidney failure, lung or liver ailments and serious muscular, neurological and brain disorders.
A report in the respected Oxford Journal of Law and Medicine earlier this year condemned cousin marriage in Britain and across the world. It said: ‘The central fact is that most Muslim people are highly consanguineous and most non-Muslims are not.’
The practice of such unions caused children to die prematurely and face lifelong intensive medical treatment as NHS doctors struggled, often unsuccessfully, to save them, it continued, before concluding: ‘Should one marry one’s cousin? No. Can we ban cousin marriage? Yes.’ The latest figures for child deaths linked to consanguinity were prepared by Bristol University, which maintains England’s National Child Mortality Database.
They reveal a rise in the death toll since 2018, when a Daily Mail investigation discovered that cousin marriages were a factor in an average of two child deaths every week. Our figure in 2018 was derived from 545 children born to closely related couples who had died in childhood during the previous five years, according to the Department for Education which at the time collated the NHS mortality data.
In 2018, in the Yorkshire and Humberside region of the NHS – embracing Bradford, Kirklees, Leeds, Sheffield, and Rotherham – doctors said they were dealing with 600 cases a year of sick youngsters and babies born to parents who were cousins.
They predicted the 600 would quadruple to 2,400 by 2031, according to an official public health report.
