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Refugee crisis: Nine-month pregnant 14-year-old goes missing amid anger the Netherlands is allowing child brides from Syria to seek asylum

Save the Children reported an 'alarming increase' in the number of child marriages within Syrian refugee communities

Tuesday 20 October 2015 11:51 BST

Fatema Alkasem, 14, was 9 months pregnant when she disappeared from the Netherlands main asylum centre (Netherlands police)

A pregnant 14-year-old girl has gone missing from a Dutch asylum centre.

She is thought to be a child bride and disappeared from Ter Apel asylum centre two months ago.

Police say Fatema Alkasem was nine months pregnant and may be in need of medical care.

The Netherlands currently faces a problem in providing asylum for girls who married in Syria but are below the Dutch age of consent, which some argue condones pedophilia.

As many as 20 girls between the ages of 13 and 15 have been given legal permission to join their older partners in Dutch asylum centres, regional news channel RTV-Noord reports.

Refugee crisis - in pictures

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A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016.

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Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016.

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Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border

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Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia.

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A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.

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A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast.

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos

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A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said

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Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year

Refugee crisis - in pictures

The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos

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Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos

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A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day

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An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France

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A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea

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Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

The charity Save the Children has reported an "alarming increase" in the number of child marriages within Syrian refugee communities in Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.

While the age of sexual consent in the Netherlands is 16, migration minister Klaas Dijkhoff told the BBC the country recognises marriages involving young teenagers, as long as they are officially registered in their country of origin.

The government in The Hague is seeking an amendment so that family reunification applications will only recognise marriages if both partners are over the age of 18.

"A 12-year-old girl with a 40-year-old-man - that is not a marriage, that is abuse", said politician Attje Kuiken, according to the BBC.

"We're talking about really young children, girls 12, 13 years old. I want to protect these children. The government should take them into foster care and protect them, because before the new law comes into force, they can still be subject to abuse."

The new rules will come into effect in December.