Germany will not recognise polygamy or marriages involving minors, its justice minister said on Tuesday, as concern rises over such cases amid a record influx of refugees, many from Muslim countries.
“No one who comes here has the right to put his cultural values or religious beliefs above our law,” justice minister Heiko Maas said in an interview. ‘Therefore no polygamous marriages will be recognised in Germany.”
Under Islamic law, men are allowed to take up to four wives.
In Germany, however, polygamy is banned although the law provides latitude in some cases for migrants who had wedded abroad.
For instance, if a man dies leaving two wives, a court could take into account their de facto relationship, which is bigamous under common law, when distributing the inheritance.
But Maas wants to end the ambiguity, saying. “Everybody must abide by the law, no matter whether he has grown up here or has only just arrived. The law applies equally to all.”
Likewise, the justice minister said cases of marriages involving a minor should also be outlawed, for fear that the under aged individual has been forced into marrying.
“We cannot tolerate forced marriages, above all, if they affect under-aged girls,” Maas said.
According to Unicef, child marriages — where at least one spouse is under 18 — account for 40 per cent of all marriages in Afghanistan, from where one of the biggest groups of recent refugees to Germany come.
Bild reported that the southern state of Bavaria has recorded 161 cases of asylum seekers with spouses who are under 16, and 550 cases of marriages involving under-18s. In neighbouring Baden-Wuerttemberg, 117 cases of child marriages were registered among newly arrived migrants, while in the populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia, at least 188 such cases with under-aged girls had been recorded.