For years the debate on family reunification has focused on Danish-Turks, who brought a spouse to Denmark.
Now the Turks have been overtaken by Thais, and the debate should therefore perhaps be modified to be about a Danish man with a Thai wife, writes Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
While 342 Turks in the first half of 2010 was seeking reunification, 370 Thais handed in an application to the Danish authorities.
The Thai prosperity due to the volume of Thai women in Denmark have reached a “critical high number”.
”They can help each other to find men, to come up here and to commit themselves in the Danish society,”says social anthropologist Sine Plambech from the Danish Institute for International Studies, which for years have researched the Thai women’s migration.
Part of the reunifications concernes well-educated women from Bangkok, who has fallen in love with a posted Dane. A great majority of the women, however, come from the North Eastern province of Isan, which is Thailand’s poorest region.
Much of the Danish-Thai marriages break down after a few years.
“There are many fine marriages, but about 65 percent are divorced. It can be difficult to be married to one from a culture that is very different than your own, and expectations for marriages can often be very different,” says Sine Plambech.
