ABSTRACT
A series of restrictive state policies including the Immigration Act of 1971 and the British Nationality Act a decade later substantially reduced migratory flows from Pakistan to the UK up until the mid-1980s. The same is true of Italy where Pakistanis remain a predominantly male community; statistics for Prato in 2004 registered a gendered imbalance of 877 men to 358 women. The association of Northern Europe with security, prosperity and welfare benefits is somewhat ironic given that one of the most significant groups of new Pakistani migrants working in Britain is composed of those migrants smuggled into the UK without legal permission. These include men without documents, without the right to reside and work, men in a similar position to their Italian counterparts. By increasing the costs of successful migration and incorporation within destination countries, human smuggling and ongoing problems of illegality have added a perverse twist to the impossibility of return identified by Sayad and Muhammad Anwar.
