Memories of your wedding day should fill your heart with warmth, comfort and love.

However, for those targeted by immigration marriage fraud it marks the first day in which they fell victim - to their spouse.

Such cases involve a person being scammed into getting hitched by a foreign national whose sole aim is gaining a visa or financial support.

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Kim Sow from Dover believes she was exploited by a Sengalese man who allegedly left her £50,000 out of pocket.

She met him in May 2007 before they wed in both Senegal and the UK a year later.

She claims he told her he was a widower who had been left to bring up three children alone.

“The impact on my life was enormous. I lost in one day my husband and my three children who I had been emotionally supporting as they were all involved in the con as well" - Kim

Kim became their step-mother and bought a five-bedroom property in the hope they would all live there together.

It seemed everything had fallen into place but, five years later, she was left devastated after being told he was already married back home and, as if that wasn’t enough, he had apparently also fathered more children since their wedding day.

She said: “The impact on my life was enormous. I lost in one day my husband and my three children who I had been emotionally supporting as they were all involved in the con as well.

"My dreams disappeared, my belief in what my life was, all my plans for my future had just disappeared.

Video: How a dream wedding turned into a nightmare

“I and other victims feel so deceived. We feel raped by deception. Imagine finding out that your husband has another wife and children and continues to have other children.

"The intent from the very beginning is to scam you and it’s not just about citizenship, it’s to get your assets. It’s like being involved in a slow bank robbery.”

She added: “It was quite a shock for me to suddenly find myself in one of these immigration marriage frauds.

"I thought I was unique at first and then I was to meet up with hundreds of other victims across the UK with exactly the same story as myself.”

Kim has since become involved with campaign group Immigration Marriage Fraud UK to help raise awareness and try and put a stop to other people falling victim.

She said: “In the majority of cases we see, we are finding out victims are being targeted in the UK by unscrupulous men and women who’re already married and because there are no checks done on marital status or criminal background by the Home Office for the immigration process, it’s very easy for the scammers to actually hide an existing family, or several, back in their home country.”

Kim is still fighting her own battle in seeking justice and will be meeting with Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner Ann Barnes to present her case and call for a dedicated unit to handle the issue.

She said: “It was five and a half months before I actually got anybody in authority to sit down and thoroughly investigate this case.

"We are now almost 16 months since first reporting it and this person still remains in the UK and is still married to the wife in Senegal.

“We will never know the extent of how many of these frauds are taking place because the Home Office isn’t keeping statistics" - Kim

“One of the things I did was lobby the former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine. He actually found out that nobody in the UK has been deported for fraud, misrepresentation and concealment of material fact.

“We will never know the extent of how many of these frauds are taking place because the Home Office isn’t keeping statistics. They have kind of fudged the issue by putting us into a sham marriage category.

"It’s very clear that as a crime, it’s still not going to be addressed properly. What we’re asking for is that we have a unit set up as per the Forced Marriage Unit.

"This is the only way that we can address the crime and stop these fraudsters coming into the UK.”

Marriage fraud of this type is a grey area due to the lack of figures available, but one Kent MP argues it's a problem that must be addressed.

Dover and Deal MP Charlie Elphicke said: “I’m very concerned that people are coming through Dover, breaking into the country often from Calais, finding people to exploit and then taking advantage.

“It seems that across the country thousands of women have been shamelessly exploited by people like this. We need to throw the book at them" - MP Charlie Elphicke

“It seems that across the country thousands of women have been shamelessly exploited by people like this. We need to throw the book at them and put a stop to it.”

He has since contacted Home Secretary Theresa May to request a meeting in order to discuss ways of dealing with the problem.

In a statement, James Brokenshire, Immigration and Security Minister, said: “This government has done more than any before it to clamp down on those seeking to abuse marriage as a means of cheating their way into the UK.

“That includes increasing the period before a spouse or partner is able to apply for UK settlement from two years to five, providing a far tougher test of the genuineness of a relationship.

"The new Immigration Act, which became law last year, represents the biggest reform of marriage preliminaries in a generation. It is giving us a much stronger platform for effective, systematic action to identify, disrupt and deter marriages which are not genuine.”

Official Home Office guidance also states "If leave has been obtained by deception, we have the power to revoke that leave, which will have a significant impact on anyone trying to gain an immigration advantage in the UK."

From next month, the notice period couples have to give of their intention to enter into a marriage or civil partnership will be extended from 15 to 28 days, as part of the Immigration Act.

For many victims of immigration marriage fraud, it’s hoped this is a sign of progress in preventing people from conning victims into saying ‘I do’ for their own personal gain.