Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal government took steps Wednesday to reduce the number of forced marriages, while admitting that many difficulties stand in the way of uncovering them.

Among new measures: Switzerland will not recognize a foreign marriage if a spouse is under age 18 and it is considering raising this to age 21 if initial measures do not bring results. For marriages in Switzerland the country is planning to tighten observance of existing regulations, in particular by legally obliging those who perform marriages to report any suspicion that a partner is being forced to marry. Until now, a forced marriage could only be annulled after a certain time: under new regulations a force marriage is annulled effective immediately once the case is brought to light.

The Federal Council, which approved the measures, points out that these rules do not apply to arranged marriages, where both partners are seen to consent.

Federal press release with details, French

Posted by Ellen Wallace on 14 November 2007 at 14:30 | permalink
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News story, GenevaLunch, 14 November 2007.

Filed under: Society, Travel, World news

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.