Progressives (really reactionary regressives) taking the country down the tubes…..
Refugee crisis: Influx of migrant child brides tests Germany
The return of child marriage is one of many challenges confronting Germany as it struggles to integrate the 1.2 million migrants — most of them Muslims — who have streamed into the country.
- The Times
As a 15-year-old Syrian refugee, Fatima has been granted all the comforts Germany offers to those fleeing her war-torn homeland.
Living in a shelter near the western town of Bielefeld, the state covers all her basic needs: accommodation, food and security.
Such support is all the more needed because Fatima is pregnant by her 34-year-old husband, a fellow Syrian refugee who was put up in the same town so they could continue to see each other.
For German authorities, Fatima’s marriage at the age of 13 before she set out on her perilous journey to Europe presents a dilemma they cannot ignore.
Do they reject the betrothal of someone who could not legally wed in Germany or do they accept the arrangement?
The return of child marriage is one of a multitude of challenges confronting Germany as it struggles to integrate the 1.2 million migrants — most of them Muslims — who have streamed into the country since last year under the “welcome” policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
An estimated 1000 child brides are registered among Germany’s migrants, but the true figure is thought to be considerably higher.
Bavaria alone has 160 brides under 16, official figures say, with a further 550 between 16 and 18. In Germany, the normal minimum age of marriage is 18; it is possible to marry at 16 with special consent.
Many of the marriages have been conducted by clerics in accordance with sharia, the Islamic legal code. Attention has been focused on the issue since June, when a court in Bamberg, Bavaria, accepted the marriage of a Syrian man of 21 and his 14-year-old cousin. The youth welfare service had separated the pair, who settled in nearby Aschaffenburg, and made the girl a ward of court. The couple then challenged the decision.