FINE
GAEL have called for a specific criminal offence to end sham marriages
after gardaí freed two Latvian women who were being held against their
will and pressurised into marriage.
Gardaí suspect the women, aged 19 and 25, were being ordered to marry two Asian men.
This would enable the men — from India and Pakistan — to get a Latvian
passport, which would allow them to travel, live and work throughout
the EU.
Gardaí have a dedicated operation aimed at combating
the growing problem and have objected in the courts to up to 70 suspect
marriages so far this year.
Of the 70, 16 people have been arrested on various alleged offences to do with fraudulent unions.
In the most recent incident, two Latvian women arrived in the country
on Friday and were taken to an apartment in Palmerstown, west Dublin.
They were promised work in the country by traffickers, but over the
weekend their keepers turned on them and said they would have to marry
two Asian men.
When they refused they were locked in a
bedroom, but one of them had a mobile phone concealed on her.
On Sunday,
she managed to raise the alarm by texting some friends in Latvia, who
contacted the police there.
The Latvian police alerted gardaí
and within two hours of the alarm going out, detectives from the Garda
National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) raided the apartment and freed the
women.
The main suspected trafficker, a 23-year-old from
India, was arrested at the flat as well as a 32-year-old Pakistani
national.
The Indian national is believed to be here on a
student visa and has a conviction for an immigration offence. The two
were detained under Section Four of the Criminal Justice Act.
Fine Gael’s justice spokes- man Alan Shatter said: "The gardaí are to be
congratulated for recent successes in trying to prevent sham marriages.
However, more needs to be done. Our criminal law in this area is
seriously deficient.
"Fine Gael will propose in the Dáil next
week that the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2010 be amended
to render it a specific criminal offence to voluntarily participate in a
sham marriage or to arrange, or conspire to arrange, for the
celebration of any such marriage."
Last August, a senior
superintendent registrar with the HSE had expressed concerns that
between 10% and 15% of civil marriage ceremonies may be marriages of
convenience.
The GNIB said they had stepped in to prevent 57
bogus marriages and that many of the suspect marriages involved Latvian
women and Pakistani men.
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