Key facts
- 358 child marriages officially recorded in Baden-Württemberg since 2012.
- Only eight of these marriages have been legally annulled.
- 350 cases were ended through means other than legal annulment.
- An 11-year-old Iraqi girl was married to a 17-year-old Iraqi in a case annulled in 2020.
- A 14-year-old Afghan girl's marriage to a 30-year-old man was ended in 2018.
- The YASEMIN counseling center recorded 80 cases of minors at risk of forced marriage in 2025.
In the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 358 child marriages have been officially recorded since 2012, with authorities only managing to legally annul eight of these cases. The remaining 350 marriages were terminated through other means, such as reaching adulthood or the death of a spouse, according to a response from the state government to a parliamentary inquiry.
The inquiry was initiated by AfD state parliament members Nikolaos Boutakoglou and Emely Knorr. The data, collected by the Tübingen regional authority and provided by the Ministry of the Interior, reveals that some brides were as young as 11 years old.
Among the eight annulled marriages were that of an 11-year-old Iraqi girl to a 17-year-old Iraqi in 2020, and a 14-year-old Afghan girl to a 30-year-old man in 2018. Two further annulments in 2024 involved 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 man.
The significantly higher number of cases concluded without state intervention raises questions about how these marriages were ended. The state government cited reasons such as the death of a spouse, the individuals reaching adulthood, or new marriages contracted abroad. The statistics also include cases from 2023 and 2026, involving minors aged 12, 13, 16, and 17.
AfD member Nikolaos Boutakoglou described the issue as "really awful" and a taboo, while Emely Knorr stated that child marriages are incompatible with German values and called for effective protection and resolute action against forced marriages.
The Ministry of Education confirmed that data on the impact of forced marriages on schooling is not collected. The YASEMIN counseling center, funded by the state, recorded 271 counseling cases in 2025, with 80 individuals at risk of forced marriage, including 33 minors, four of whom were under 12 years old.