An unemployed Muslim migrant from Tunisia has been found guilty of child abuse after having sex with a 15-year-old Swiss girl who the man is said to have “married” during Ramadan in 2016.

The 40-year-old Tunisian is said to have met the 15-year-old, who he claims told him she was 19 at the time, in 2016, and ‘married’ her during Ramadan in order to have sex with her after he had divorced from his former wife.

The Tunisian claimed that he suspected the girl, who is a Swiss convert to Islam, was underage and despite confirming this with the girl’s mother, continued his relationship with the teen, 20 Minutes reports.

Later, the 40-year-old remarried the underage girl at a ceremony at the Mosquée de Lausanne despite the legal age of marriage in Switzerland being eighteen. The imam of the mosque has since denied marrying the couple.

After the marriage ceremony, the Tunisian left Switzerland and temporarily headed back to his home country. He was then informed that his ‘wife’ had been unfaithful and complained that he did not wish to be married to her anymore.

Child Bride Legally Married Under Sharia Law, German Judge Rules https://t.co/Y5qYmriAqO pic.twitter.com/JtmHi4MCfQ — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 11, 2016

During the entire time, the parents of the teen did not know she had been married to the 40-year-old and when they found out they reported the migrant to the police.

Earlier this week the migrant, who is also said to have beaten his five-year-old child, was convicted and given a five year suspended sentence, and will be billed 12,000 Swiss Francs (£8,779) in court fees.

Cases of child marriage have risen substantially following the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, with countries like Germany recording at least 1,000 cases in 2016. The vast majority of child marriages occur in countries outside of Europe but, in some cases, European governments accept them as legal if they occurred overseas.

Sweden has also encountered the same legal problems with marriages performed overseas but recently the Swedish parliament voted to ban the recognition of all child marriages no matter where they originally took place.