Summary
Colombia has banned child marriage after 17 years of advocacy and eight failed legislative attempts, closing a 137-year legal loophole that allowed minors to marry with parental consent or cohabit as informal spouses.
The new law, “They are Girls, Not Wives,” aligns Colombia with international standards and makes it one of 12 Latin American countries to entirely prohibit marriage under 18.
Advocacy groups celebrated the historic victory but emphasized the need for policies addressing poverty, machismo, and systemic inequalities that fuel child marriage, particularly in rural and Indigenous communities.
I mean… there have been some regrettable cases in Germany directly after the law declaring foreign sub-18 marriage to be invalid, like 16/18yold asylum seeker couples getting separated. There’s a difference between saying “we don’t recognise that, you’ll have to marry again under German law” and “we’re putting you in two different accommodations in two different states because you can’t possibly be a family unit and that’s how the dice fell”. You can’t just blindly assume they’re not heads over heels for each other, no matter how arranged and young the marriage was, you have to look at the individual case and if everything checks out treat them eg. analogous to siblings when it comes to accommodation.