New Delhi: An 11-year-old Iraqi girl married to a 17-year-old boy. A 14-year-old Afghan girl married to a 30-year-old man. A 12-year-old Afghan girl married to a 21-year-old man. These are among the cases of child marriage recorded in Baden-Württemberg, a state in southwestern Germany, where authorities have documented 358 marriages involving minors since 2012. Only eight have so far been annulled with final legal effect, raising questions about what happened to the children in the remaining cases.
The figures were revealed in a response by the Baden-Württemberg state government to a parliamentary inquiry by two lawmakers from the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Nikolaos Boutakoglou and Emely Knorr. The Tübingen regional authority maintains the records, according to the state’s interior ministry.
The eight final annulments took place between 2018 and 2024. The marriage involving the 11-year-old Iraqi girl was annulled in 2020. In 2018, authorities ended the marriage of the 14-year-old Afghan girl and the 30-year-old man. Two further annulments in 2024 involved a 16-year-old German girl married to a 25-year-old Pakistani man, and a 16-year-old Syrian girl married to a 27-year-old Syrian man.
The remaining 350 cases were recorded as having been concluded through other means, rather than through a legally binding annulment. The state government cited several reasons, including a spouse’s death, the minor reaching adulthood, a decision not to seek annulment or a subsequent marriage abroad.
The records include several other cases involving girls aged 13 and 14. Entries from 2026 include marriages involving girls aged 16 and 17 and adult men. The ministry said there were no court proceedings pending to annul child marriages at the time the inquiry was answered.
Germany has prohibited marriage before the age of 18 since the Act to Combat Child Marriages came into force in 2017. In 2024, the Bundestag adopted further rules aimed at protecting minors in marriages conducted abroad. The Baden-Württemberg authorities’ figures concern marriages entered into outside Germany.
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Girls’ education
The inquiry also sought to establish how child and forced marriages affect girls’ education. The state’s education ministry said it did not collect data on how many affected children stopped attending school. Authorities also lacked information on the countries where the recorded marriages had taken place.
A separate set of figures from YASEMIN, a state-funded counselling centre for people affected by forced marriage, offers another indication of the risks faced by minors. In 2025, the centre recorded 271 counselling cases, 80 of which involved people at risk of forced marriage. Thirty-three of those at risk were minors: four were under 12, five were 12 and two were 13.
The centre records cases by age and calendar year, but does not break them down by school status or school year. The parliamentary inquiry was prompted by an emergency checklist published in July 2026 by women’s rights organisation Terre des Femmes, aimed primarily at teachers.
Knorr called for stronger safeguards, saying children had a right to safety, education and a self-determined future. She urged early intervention and more decisive action against forced marriage.
The figures offer only a partial picture of child marriage in Germany. Baden-Württemberg does not maintain comprehensive information on the educational consequences of these marriages, while the federal government has no nationwide record covering all such cases.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)