Sweden will soon no longer recognise child marriages and polygamy after the country’s parliament voted to end official recognition of marriage between children and adults and multi-partner marriages.
In recent years Sweden has seen a spike in child marriages, particularly between older men and their underage first cousins as well as polygamous marriages, with over 150 men in the country being married to more than one woman.
Both these practices are common amongst the hundreds of thousands Muslim migrants from the Middle East and Africa, that Sweden has accepted over the past five years.
Although these types of marriages as well as sex with underage children was already illegal, the Swedish government began to recognise the marriages and refrain from enforcing Swedish law so as not to offend Muslims who settled in the country.
The bill passed the vote in the Swedish parliament despite opposition from the Swedish government who are prepared to forgo Swedish law and allow polygamy, child sex and forced marriage as well as inter-family marriage in order to accommodate certain privileged sections of society.