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Germany registers 358 child marriages, only eight annulled

Hundreds of child marriages registered in Germany, the youngest bride was 11
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According to the authorities of Baden-Württemberg, 358 child marriages have been officially registered in this federal state in southwestern Germany. Only eight of them have been annulled, all between 2018 and 2024.

The most serious cases

The documented cases include the marriage of an 11-year-old girl from Iraq to a 17-year-old compatriot, which was annulled in 2020. The union of a 14-year-old Afghan girl with a 30-year-old man ended back in 2018. In 2024, two more annulments followed: a 16-year-old German girl and a 25-year-old Pakistani man, and a 16-year-old Syrian girl and a 27-year-old fellow countryman.

The law exists, but does little

Since the summer of 2017, Germany has had a law banning child marriage: people can marry only from the age of 18. In 2024, the German parliament adopted new rules that protect minors from marriages concluded abroad. But reality is far from the letter of the law.

Of the 358 marriages, eight were annulled, while the remaining 350 are recorded in the documents as “other decision”. This covers, for example, the younger partner reaching adulthood, the death of one spouse, remarriage abroad, or a decision not to pursue proceedings. When members of parliament requested the data, not a single annulment case was pending in court.

What the counselling statistics show

The state-funded Yasemin counselling centre received 271 inquiries last year. Roughly eighty concerned people threatened with forced marriage; among them were 33 minors: four under 12, five aged 12 and two aged 13.

Almost 40 percent of the registered cases are marriages between Syrian citizens. Citizens of Bulgaria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan also appear in the records.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz

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