With unchecked mass migration from Muslim-majority North Africa and Middle East, the German authorities are struggling to cope with the surge in child marriages across the country.
Germany’s top constitutional court on Wednesday urged the government to ease the child marriage law which nullifies such marital unions, and requires the separation of child brides from their husbands upon arrival in the country.
“Germany’s constitutional court ruled Wednesday that a law banning child marriages needs to be amended because it removes the possibility of continuing a marriage once both spouses become adults,” the Associated Press reported.
The court’s ruling came in response to a case brought forward by a 21-year-old Syrian man who was separated by the authorities from his 14-year-old “bride.”
“Germany’s top court demands child marriage law be amended,” DW News, March 29, 2023:
Germany’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that a 2017 law aimed at ending child marriages is not clear enough and must be amended.
The current statute declares all marriages invalid if one of the parties was under 16 at the time of the wedding. This includes marriages entered into abroad by German residents.
It was designed to prevent parents from sending their children to other countries to participate in arranged marriages, and to invalidate child marriages performed abroad on couples who later came to Germany.
The court gave lawmakers until the end of June 2024 to issue clarifications on issues such as whether minors could petition for alimony before or after their 16th birthday, and whether a previously void marriage becomes valid after both parties are at least 16 years old.
The current case was brought before the Constitutional Court by a Syrian couple whose marriage was invalidated when they arrived in Germany in 2015 as refugees.
At the time, the girl was 14 and the man was 21. Upon arrival, she was separated from her husband and placed in a facility for female refugees.
The law banning child marriages was passed by the German parliament in 2017, two years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country’s borders to uncontrolled migration, resulting in the mass-importation of child brides.
The scale of the problem is difficult to assess. German authorities were unaware of the number of child marriages being arranged or imported into the country, a 2018 media reports suggested.
The mass-importation of child brides is not the only ugly feature of Germany’s misguided immigration policy. The German government has also been flying in ISIS brides and their children stranded in Syria and Iraq since the fall of the Islamic khalifate.
