Hundreds of marriages between children have been recognized by the Danish authorities.
The Danish newspaper Berlingske obtained the internal documents , which revealed that the Danish authorities allowed child marriages for decades, in some cases for children as young as nine.
The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing has allowed hundreds of marriages for minors of non-Western origin over the past thirty years
- revealed from the documents, wrote the Norwegian news portal Document, which was inspected by the V4na.com .
These marriages were typically concluded abroad and were later officially recognized in Denmark by a so-called "kongebrev". The congrebev (royal letter or charter) goes back hundreds of years, it was a kind of exemption from certain rules, which the king gave to the applicants. However, it is most famous for enabling the recognition of marriages concluded with minors. This practice was abolished in 2017, but the authorities later allowed and recognized child marriages.
Based on the documents, the Danish authorities have registered around 20,000 marriages between children since 1970, the youngest marrying party was only nine years old.
According to documents obtained by the Danish newspaper Berlingske, after 1986, 1,093 marriages with minors were concluded in Denmark, and 8,663 marriages concluded abroad were recognized.
Among the data, 300 marriages were found with 14-year-old children, 86 marriages with 13-year-olds, 49 marriages with 12-year-olds, 17 marriages with 11-year-olds, 11 marriages with 10-year-olds, and 13 marriages with 9-year-old children.
Researcher Sofie Danneskiold-Samsose highlighted that
the large age difference observed in many cases between girls of child age and adult men indicates that in many cases it is a question of forced marriages.
Cover image: Illustration / Pixabay
