Pakistanis in Denmark

Though the Danish government restricted labour migration in 1973, the Pakistani community continued to grow, largely through family reunification and transnational marriages.

[6] Beginning in the 1990s, the Danish People's Party and the Social Democrats began to call for restrictions on family reunification in order to control the growth of immigrant communities.

[7] In response to the newly tightened migration requirements, more than a thousand Pakistanis from Denmark established residence in the Swedish border city of Malmö (on the strength of European Union laws on freedom of movement for workers) and applied for family reunification there, taking advantage of the laxity of the Swedish laws in this regard.

[10] Like other European countries, Denmark also has a minor presence of followers of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a heterodox sect formed during British colonial rule.

[12] From the 1970s to the 1990s, it was common for Pakistani migrants in Denmark to use their family social networks back in Pakistan to arrange marriages for their children.

[16] In one widely publicised case in 2006, a 19-year-old girl died in an honor killing by her father and brothers because they disapproved of her choice of spouse.

[20] 2003 statistics on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries in Denmark found that Pakistanis had the lowest unemployment rate out of all groups surveyed, at 6.8%.

[6] According to Statistics Denmark, 0,8% of male Pakistani descendants received a court sentence for violent crime in 2016, four times higher than the national average.