A majority in parliament is prepared to crack down on imams who perform forced and unregistered Muslim marriages - particularly those involving girls under 18.
The Liberals, Social Democrats, Conservatives and Danish People’s Party are unified in their efforts to come up with an effective means of preventing the weddings from taking place and punishing the imams who perform them.
Several leading Muslim experts and counsellors have indicated to Jyllands-Posten newspaper that the number of forced marriages in the country is significant - also for teenage girls who have converted to Islam.
‘These marriages have to be identified and stopped,’ said Karsten Lauritzen, integration spokesman for the Liberal Party. ‘The imams who perform these weddings are contributing to the repression of women and there ought to be consequences for them.’
Experts say that girls forced into these marriages cannot escape them because they have no rights when the marriage is not recognised by Danish authorities. It is normally the imam who decides if a divorce is possible, and often this decision is made according to sharia law.
In addition to the forced marriages, many experts and Muslim women themselves have indicated that polygamy is also common within the Islamic community in Denmark. MP Naser Khader warned the authorities not to take the issue lightly.
‘It must be taken seriously and suppressed in all possible ways,’ said Khader. ‘You can’t just wave it off as a part of Muslim culture.’