358 child marriages on file in one German state. One bride was 11

An 11-year-old Iraqi girl. A 17-year-old Iraqi husband. The year was 2020, and the marriage ended up on a government list in southern Germany.

She is one of 358 children in child marriages recorded in the state of Baden-Württemberg since 2012. The state government released the list in October 2026, after two opposition members asked for it in writing.

Only 8 of those marriages were ever annulled by a court. The other 350 ended some other way, or simply stayed on file.

The story spread fast. A Daily Mail headline about it was seen more than 3.3 million times in a day. But the headline said "in Germany", and the numbers come from one state. That state is home to about 11.2 million people, or roughly 13.5% of the country.

How many child marriages are there in Germany?

Nobody knows the full number today. In July 2025, the federal government said it could not give exact figures, according to a later motion in the Bundestag, Germany's national parliament.

The best national count comes from the Central Register of Foreigners. That register lists foreign residents, including whether they are married. It cannot show who the spouse is.

Here is what the official counts show, with dates.

The fall after 2016 is sharp. The first figure was counted before Germany's 2017 law against child marriage, and the later ones after it. The register counts differ from the Baden-Württemberg list, which counts marriages known to one state authority.

1,475.002016

226.00Dec 2018

162.00Oct 2019

2016	1,475.00
Dec 2018	226.00
Oct 2019	162.00

Source: German federal government answers to Bundestag questions, Central Register of Foreigners

Who were the youngest brides in the list?

The state's answer gives a handful of cases with ages and nationalities. Euronews listed them on 13 October 2026.

• 2018: A 14-year-old Afghan girl and a 30-year-old man. Annulled.
• 2020: An 11-year-old Iraqi girl and a 17-year-old Iraqi boy. Annulled.
• 2023: A 12-year-old Afghan girl and a 21-year-old Afghan man. Not annulled.
• 2024: A 16-year-old German girl and a 25-year-old Pakistani man. Annulled.
• 2024: A 16-year-old Syrian girl and a 27-year-old Syrian man. Annulled.

Girls aged 13 and 14 show up several times in the figures. In 2026, the list includes 16- and 17-year-old girls married to adult men.

Photo: Unknown

Which nationalities are on the list?

The Daily Mail headline named Iraqis, Syrians and Pakistanis. The official answer is wider than that.

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The regional authority in Tübingen keeps the records. According to the German news site Nius, it says Syrian, Afghan, Bulgarian, Turkish and Iraqi citizens appear often. One annulled marriage involved a German girl.

The reports we read do not give a count for each nationality. So it is not possible to say what share each group makes up. The state records age and nationality because both matter when a court decides whether to annul.

Why were these marriages allowed in Germany?

They mostly were not. Germany does not marry anyone under 18. The state Interior Ministry says the list covers only marriages that took place abroad.

Families married children in their home countries, then came to Germany. The marriage then showed up in German records, for example when a family registered or applied to stay.

Germany's Act to Combat Child Marriages came into force in the summer of 2017. Under it:

• The marriage age is 18, with no exceptions.
• A foreign marriage where one partner was under 16 is void in Germany.
• A foreign marriage where one partner was 16 or 17 can be annulled by a family court.
• A married minor who arrives without a parent is treated as an unaccompanied child. The local youth welfare office, the Jugendamt, takes them into its care.

Why were only 8 of 358 marriages annulled?

The state government gave four reasons why most cases never reached a court ruling.

1. One spouse died.
2. The young person turned 18 before a court acted.
3. Someone decided not to apply for annulment.
4. The couple married again abroad.

When the government answered, no court cases to annul a child marriage were open in the state at all.

The question came from Nikolaos Boutakoglou and Emely Knorr, two members of the state parliament for the AfD party. One popular reply under the Daily Mail post said this only came out because the "far right" asked. That part is true. The AfD is the party that asked.

Knorr wrote on Instagram that child marriages are incompatible with "our values". Boutakoglou called the issue really awful and said it was treated as a taboo.

Photo: BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Did Germany's top court strike down the child marriage law?

Partly. In February 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the rule that made foreign marriages with under-16s void.

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The judges did not say child marriage is fine. They said the law went too far in one way. It gave a young wife no maintenance money and no way to keep the marriage once she was an adult, even if she wanted to. The court told lawmakers to fix this by 30 June 2024.

The Bundestag passed the fix in June 2024. SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP voted for it. The AfD voted against.

Under the new rules, marriages with under-16s stay void. But the young person can now claim maintenance, and the couple can marry again properly once both are adults. Most law professors at the hearing opposed the draft, while people who work with these families backed it.

In July 2026, the AfD put a motion in the Bundestag to ban forced and child marriages outright. It had its first debate that month.

Is child marriage still a problem in Germany today?

Counsellors say yes. The state-funded YASEMIN centre in Baden-Württemberg handled 271 counselling cases in 2025. In 80 of them, someone was at risk of forced marriage. Thirty-three were minors, and four of those were under 12.

The question in parliament was sparked by an emergency checklist from the women's rights group Terre des Femmes. It came out in late July 2026 and was written mainly for teachers.

Britain went through its own version of this fight. England and Wales raised the minimum marriage age to 18 in February 2023, ending marriage at 16 and 17 with a parent's consent.

For more on how Europe is arguing about migration this year, read one dad's furious goodbye to Europe after four hours in a Dutch ER. Closer to home, South Africa had its own fight over an asylum directive that lasted just 11 days.

When will Germany check if the new law protects children?

The 2024 law came with a deadline built in. The federal Justice Ministry must test whether the rules really protect children who were married before 16, and any children they have. It has three years from 1 July 2024 to do it.

That makes 1 July 2027 the date Germany has to say whether its own law works.

Until then, the list from Stuttgart stands as it is. Eight marriages annulled. Three hundred and fifty not. And in the 2023 row, next to a 12-year-old Afghan girl and a 21-year-old man, the answer still reads: Not annulled.