A 13-year old Moroccan girl was allowed to get married at the townhall of Schaerbeek, an immigrant district of Brussels. The legal age for a woman to get married in Belgium is 16. The girl simply lied about her age.
With the complicity of her mother, she claimed that she had lost her ID card, and applied for a new one, using her older sister's identity (who was in Morocco at the time). Using this fraudulent document, she managed to get married to an immigrant Moroccan man who needed the marriage to obtain a visa.
The authorities only spotted the scam once the 22-year old older sister came back to Belgium and received a mail from the government stating that she was married. Unaware of ther younger sister's doing, she explained to the townhall that she wasn't married.
It is estimated that thousands of marriages in Belgium are fraudulent so as to allow immigrants to claim family reunion to stay in the country.
With the complicity of her mother, she claimed that she had lost her ID card, and applied for a new one, using her older sister's identity (who was in Morocco at the time). Using this fraudulent document, she managed to get married to an immigrant Moroccan man who needed the marriage to obtain a visa.
The authorities only spotted the scam once the 22-year old older sister came back to Belgium and received a mail from the government stating that she was married. Unaware of ther younger sister's doing, she explained to the townhall that she wasn't married.
It is estimated that thousands of marriages in Belgium are fraudulent so as to allow immigrants to claim family reunion to stay in the country.