In Baden-Württemberg, only eight child marriages have been legally annulled since 2012, while the state-wide responsible Regional Council of Tübingen documented another 350 cases resolved without a formal legal annulment. This discrepancy came to light following a parliamentary inquiry submitted to the state government by AfD state parliament members Nikolaos Boutakoglou and Emely Knorr, bringing a total of 358 child marriages into public view.
The Legal Reality of Annulments in Baden-Württemberg
Among the eight legally annulled marriages recorded between 2018 and 2024, the state documented extreme cases involving very young minors. In 2020, authorities annulled the marriage of an 11-year-old Iraqi girl to a 17-year-old Iraqi boy. Another case from 2018 involved a 14-year-old Afghan girl married to a 30-year-old Afghan man. Most recently, authorities annulled two marriages in 2024: a 16-year-old German girl married to a 25-year-old Pakistani, and a 16-year-old Syrian girl married to a 27-year-old Syrian man.
The volume of cases handled outside the courtroom is significantly larger. The Regional Council of Tübingen lists 350 proceedings between 2015 and 2026 under the category of “other settlements.” The state government attributes these resolutions to factors such as the death of a spouse, a partner reaching the age of majority, a decision to refrain from annulment, or a couple remarrying abroad. These settled files also contain instances of young minors, including a 2020 record of a 12-year-old Afghan girl married to an 18-year-old man, a 2022 marriage between a 12-year-old Syrian girl and a 28-year-old Syrian man, and a 2023 record involving a 12-year-old Afghan girl and a 21-year-old Afghan man, alongside multiple entries for 13- and 14-year-old girls.
Missing Data and Specialized Support Services
The state interior ministry stated that no judicial procedures regarding the annulment of child marriages were pending at the time of the response. When the inquiring lawmakers asked how many students in Baden-Württemberg had been forced into marriage since 2010 and subsequently dropped out of school despite mandatory education laws, the ministry of education reported that it collects no such data. The regional administration also lacks information regarding the countries where these marriages originally took place, as the Regional Council of Tübingen tracks only the data necessary for annulment proceedings, specifically the age and nationality of the spouses at the time of the wedding.
Additional figures from the state-funded counseling center Yasemin provide further insight into the scope of the issue. In 2025, the facility registered 271 counseling cases, with 80 involving individuals threatened by forced marriage. Among those threatened individuals, 33 were minors: four were younger than 12 years old, five were 12, and two were 13. Another 46 were of legal age, while one case lacked an age category.
The parliamentary inquiry was prompted by an emergency leaflet published in late July 2026 by the women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes, titled “Forced Marriage During the Holidays – How Can You Help as an Unaffected Person?”. The document provides guidance for teachers and others on identifying the risk of forced marriage among female students. When lawmakers asked if the state government contributed financially to the publication or distribution of the leaflet, the interior ministry stated that Baden-Württemberg provided no financial backing. The state government adopted its formal response on October 1, 2026, in agreement with the culture and social ministries, and published it on October 7 as document 18_0529_D.
