hankyoreh

He recently got married to his female cousin, a common practice in Pakistan. However, he is now a South Korean because he was naturalized as a Korean citizen in April 2005. According to a South Korean law which prohibits marriages to cousins, Imran Ali’s marriage has been cancelled and the couple must be separated.

Ali came to South Korea in 2000 and in 2001, married a Korean woman, 50, who had already had two children with her former husband. Despite objections of the woman’s family, they reportedly lived happily. Ali became a Korean citizen in 2005. The problem, however, was their children’s school life, says Ali. They became the laughingstock of their fellow students because their father was a foreigner. Ali divorced his wife, ending a five-year marriage, in November 2006.

A month later, Ali returned to Pakistan to see his sick mother and stayed for two and a half months. While he was there, his father pestered that Ali to marry his cousin, Azra Muhammad Siddique, 31. She has supported her family since her father died on about 200,000 won (US$210) per month, which she earned by making accessories at home. Ali finally agreed to marry his cousin and they were wed on March 16.

After the wedding, Ali came to Korea alone and registered his marriage with the South Korean authorities. He then sent the necessary documents, including a copy of his family register, to the South Korean Embassy in Pakistan at the end of April so that his new wife could get a visa. However, a problem arose during her visa interview. The embassy official asked, “How did you marry?” and without suspecting that she would be jeopardizing her ability to join her husband, Ali’s wife explained the process. Upon hearing that Siddique and Ali were cousins, however, the embassy refused to issue her a visa.

Ali, who was in Korea at the time, appealed on behalf of his wife by calling the embassy and sending a fax and an e-mail, but all to no avail.

Siddique, like Ali, did not know that, unlike Pakistan, South Korea bars its people from marrying relatives within their third cousins or second cousins twice removed.

In an interview with The Hankyoreh at a center for foreign workers at Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, on July 27, Ali said, “I really didn’t know that South Korean law prohibits marriage with cousins.” Ali can only stay for three months in Pakistan because he is now a foreigner there. He cannot give up his Korean citizenship. He is doing business in Korea and supports his family in Pakistan with money earned here; he operates the Ali Trading Company and deals in used cars in Incheon.

Ali submitted a petition to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, a governmental human rights watchdog, on July 23. In the petition, he said, “Even though Pakistan’s customs regarding intermarriage are different from that of South Korea, Pakistanis have lived in this way for a long time. I beg you to admit the legal marriage done in Pakistan and let us to live together in Korea.”

In response, the South Korean Ministry of Justice has taken the position that it cannot issue a visa for Ali’s wife. Kim Jae-nam, an official of the ministry, said, “If Ali were a foreigner, we could take his rights into consideration, but he is a Korean citizen now and should follow Korean civil law and Korean social mores,” he said. “Though he reported his marriage, it is ineffective under the civil law,” added Kim.

According to data from the National Statistics Office (NSO), the number of foreigners who have been naturalized as Korean citizens sharply increased to 11,792 in 2005 from 297 in 2000, owing to an increase in international marriages. As this number continues to grow, cultural misunderstandings and other related problems are expected to become more diverse and complicated, extending beyond the clash of cultures. Lee Ran-ju, an activist at Solidarity for Human Rights & Culture of Asia, said, “In dealing with multiculturalism, we have, until now, thought just about the food of various nations and we haven’t experienced situations in which laws and other systems directly clash. It is time for us to start thinking about coordinating with each other’s laws, social systems and customs.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]