Officials in the German state of Baden-Württemberg have recorded 358 marriages involving a child since April 2012, and only eight of them have been formally annulled, according to data the state government released in response to a parliamentary inquiry.
State lawmakers Nikolaos Boutakoglou and Emely Knoll requested the figures. The state government said there are currently no legal proceedings to annul any of the remaining marriages.
The youngest person in the records is an 11-year-old Iraqi girl who was married to a 17-year-old Iraqi boy. In another case, a 14-year-old Afghan girl was married to a 30-year-old Afghan man. The data shows that most of the underage spouses were girls.
Many of the marriages involved people from Syria, Iraq and Pakistan. Boutakoglou broke down the numbers on X.
“Nearly 40 per cent of child marriages were contracted between Syrians, while child marriages between two Germans account for only 0.3 per cent,” Boutakoglou said.
Texas Rep. Brandon Gill wrote on X: “Islamic migration is brining untold horrors to the West.”
The state’s figures cover a single German state. Global numbers come from the United Nations, which reports that nearly one in five women worldwide were married before turning 18. The rate climbs to 32 percent in west and central Africa. One in 25 women around the world marry before age 15, according to the UN.
UNICEF calls child marriage “a fundamental violation of human rights.” The agency says on its website that the practice cuts girls off from school, isolates them socially, pushes them into early pregnancy and exposes them to domestic violence.
Germany banned marriages involving anyone under 16 and set 18 as the minimum marriage age in 2017. The Baden-Württemberg data shows how few of the state’s recorded child marriages have been dissolved since then. It also shows that the state government has no annulment cases pending.
Knoll, the other lawmaker behind the inquiry, framed the issue as one of child welfare in a Facebook post.
“Child marriages are incompatible with our values,” Knoll said. “Children have a right to safety, education, and a self-determined future. That is why we need effective
