Men struggle to find local brides in Faroe Islands

faroe flagWith 2,000 more males than females living in the Faroe Islands, men are having to import brides just to sustain society, a Danish TV station has claimed.

Most young females from the islands travel overseas to study, and half of them never return on a permanent basis, according to DR TV. The station says that is major issue is there are not enough women of childbearing age to raise children.

Former chief economic advisor Hermann Oskarsson previously warned that the population could fall from 48,500 to just 37,000 by 2023, and questioned whether the North Atlantic islands’ society could survive.

However, young males are finding a way to combat the problem: immigration. The number of Filipinos living in the Faroese has increased twofold since 2006, and there is now a combined total of around 200 Filipinos and Thais – almost all of them women – living on the islands.

In Klaksvik, for example, there is a population of 4,585, of which 15 are Asian women. One resident, Bjarni Ziska Dahl, married his Filipina fiancée in 2010; his brother Heini and even some of his friends followed suit. Bjarni explained that they need these women and, as they are also from an island community, they see many things the same way.

Meanwhile, his wife Che noted that the close family ties in the two archipelago nations is the same, while life in her homeland and in her adopted home is also similar: not too complicated.