Despite Progress, Child Marriage Is Still Legal in All 50 States – New York Times (blog)

Photo Activists dressed in bridal gowns and veils staged a chain-in in June to protest child marriage in New Jersey.Credit Kyle Oleary

State legislators in the U.S. can no longer plead ignorance about child marriage in America. Not now that research shows an estimated quarter-million children, at least as young as 10, were married in the United States between 2000 and 2010. National and international news outlets arepaying attention.

Yet while several states have moved in recent months to strengthen their laws and raise their marriage age, legal loopholes in all 50 states still allow marriage before 18 and many state legislators remain unconvinced that they need to end child marriage. Some legislators continue to insist that pregnant girls should marry, despite highly publicized cases of such girls who were forced to marry their own rapists and despite research that shows pregnant teenage girls have better long-term outcomes if they dont marry.

Marriage before age 18 has such devastating, long-lasting consequences undermining girls health, education and economic opportunities and increasing their risk of experiencing violence that the U.S. state department considers marriage before 18 a human rights abuse. Furthermore, children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage before they become legal adults, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, access a shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action. Even in a polarized age, we can all agree on ending child marriage. So whats the holdup?

In New Jersey, a bill to end all marriage before 18 passed both houses of the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support, before Gov. Chris Christieconditionally vetoed it. Christie is Americas most hated governor, with a 15 percent approval rating, yet legislators have not yet overridden his outrageous veto.

New Yorkreceived accolades for passing a bill ostensibly to end child marriage. But while the new law eliminates marriage for 14- to 16-year-olds, it still allows marriage at 17, when children face the highest risk of forced marriage.

Texasrecently passed a bill, similar to oneVirginiapassed last year, to end most child marriage, but both states still allow emancipated minors to marry. This allows for children to be forced to emancipate so they can be forced to marry. Besides, the many catastrophic impacts of marriage before 18 dont disappear if a child is emancipated.

Legislators inMarylandchose, for the second year in a row, not to pass a common-sense bill that would have eliminated child marriage. Legislators inConnecticutwere uncomfortable with a similar bill; instead, they amended it before they passed it, to be sure 16- and 17-year-olds can still be subjected to this human-rights abuse.

Californialawmakers apparently are not quite ready to follow New Hampshires shameful lead and vote no on ending child marriage, but neither are they ready to vote yes. So California legislators watered down a proposed bill enough that, if it passes, it will accomplish close to nothing.

A bill pending inMissouri, too, is inexcusably weak. The bill offers no protection for those who need it most, 17-year-olds.

However, even these inadequate bills represent remarkable, unprecedented progress toward eliminating child marriage in the U.S. Further evidence of progress lies in the strong bills to end all marriage before 18 that are pending inMassachusettsandPennsylvaniaand a solid bill that was just pre-filed in Florida. Legislators in several other states, including Colorado, Utah and Washington, are considering doing the same.

Clearly, the national movement to end child marriage is growing. Now is the time to convince hesitant lawmakers in every state to end child marriage not just for some children, or for some ages, but for all children. You can help to do this by making sure your legislators and your governor know you want to set the marriage age at 18, without exceptions (details atunchainedatlast.org).

Lets seize on the current momentum. Lets push until legislators in every state finally end child marriage.

Fraidy Reiss (@unchainedatlast) is the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, a nonprofit dedicated to helping women and girls in the U.S. to escape forced marriages.

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Despite Progress, Child Marriage Is Still Legal in All 50 States - New York Times (blog)