More than 20 child brides, including one as young as 12, have been granted permission to join their Syrian husbands in the Netherlands.
The BBC reports that a loophole in Dutch law forces immigration authorities to recognize a marriage between a child and an adult man, provided the union was recognized in their home country.
The government in The Hague is now “rushing to close a loophole” according to the report.
A leaked immigration service document says some of the girls who have arrived in recent weeks are married to men old enough to be their fathers. The men are mainly refugees from the Middle East.
“A 12-year-old girl with a 40-year-old-man – that is not a marriage, that is abuse”, said one politician Attje Kuiken.
“We’re talking about really young children, girls 12, 13 years old. I want to protect these children. The government should take them into foster care and protect them.
The Dutch migration minister Klaas Dijkhoff has told the BBC that the country “currently recognises marriages involving young teenagers, as long as they are officially registered in their country of origin.”
“At the moment we do have a problem with the bracket between 15 and 18. We want to be more strict, (and in future we will) not recognise the relationship.”
More than 36,000 refugees have entered the Netherlands this year. Former prisons, empty government offices and sports halls are being hastily modified to accommodate the surge in numbers.
