On April 4, the state legislature in Virginia voted to amend state legislation, elevating the wedding age to 18. A few days later, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed this measure into legislation.
Coming amid Sexual Assault Consciousness Month within the US, this vote was an essential victory for little one rights. Defending weak minors from sexual assault ought to incorporate banning little one marriage throughout the USA. However Virginia is just the twelfth US state to ban little one marriage. The opposite 11 enacted their bans between 2017 and 2024. Because of this till the 12 months 2017, little one marriage was authorized throughout the US below sure circumstances: if the mother and father or a choose consented, or if the minor was pregnant or had a toddler. These loopholes successfully saved the follow widespread.
Simply 12 states out of fifty having a ban on little one marriage is a shamefully low quantity. Far more must be achieved. We have to ban little one marriage nationwide.
Although Individuals usually view it as a “overseas” downside, little one marriage is surprisingly widespread all through the US, chopping throughout totally different areas, religions, and cultures, in keeping with a brand new Inhabitants Institute examine titled Behind Closed Doorways: Exposing and Addressing Dangerous Gender-Primarily based Practices in the USA. Between 2000 and 2018, an estimated 300,000 minors below age 18 had been legally married within the US. California, for instance, doesn’t specify any minimal age for marriage, and greater than 8,000 youngsters are married there annually.
Eighty-six % of kid marriages reported within the US befell between adults and minors, most frequently ladies ages 16 to 17, however typically as younger as 12. Marrying them to grownup males units up a dangerously imbalanced energy dynamic that raises the danger of home and sexual violence.
To be clear, little one marriage is a type of gender-based violence and a human rights violation. Along with bodily and emotional abuse, it places minors at larger danger for poverty and exploitation and denies them instructional and financial alternatives. It’s the main trigger of adolescent ladies dropping out of college worldwide. Within the US, ladies who marry earlier than age 19 are 50 % extra more likely to drop out of highschool, 4 occasions much less more likely to graduate from school, and 31 % extra more likely to reside in poverty. The results reverberate all through their lives, perpetuating cycles of intergenerational poverty.
However since there isn’t any complete federal legislation setting a minimal age of marriage, and the patchwork of state little one marriage legal guidelines is inconsistent and riddled with loopholes, the follow persists. The parable of American exceptionalism, the contrary-to-fact perception that little one marriage is another person’s downside and that it may possibly’t occur right here, blocks constructive public discussions and efficient laws.
This misguided perception fuels a cycle of neglect and inaction that retains states from passing efficient measures.
Resistance to enacting little one marriage bans additionally comes from each conservative and progressive teams. Conservatives argue it might intervene with non secular freedom. Progressives fear it may take sexual and reproductive selection away from minors.
However little one marriage threatens the bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom of a kid greater than any ban ever may. Ending it’s extra essential to the well being and dignity of American youngsters than preserving antiquated traditions. They want safety from coming into authorized contracts that they don’t have the facility to flee, and empowerment to make their very own selections about their lives.
Whereas the US has vocally opposed little one and compelled marriage in different nations, legal guidelines towards it contained in the US are patchy, weak, and fail to guard these in danger. In truth, most US states are overwhelmingly noncompliant with worldwide little one rights requirements.
Ending little one marriage within the US will first require recognising it as an pressing, ongoing, home downside. Additional stigmatising the follow or ostracising affected communities is not going to assist. US policymakers ought to deal with studying from survivors to know little one marriage’s root causes and actual impacts, and work with them to construct help for little one marriage bans in every state.
Survivor-led advocacy objectives embrace elevating consciousness, passing efficient, implementable laws, investing in complete sexuality schooling, and increasing reproductive well being help providers and sources. State authorities ought to help such efforts.
All states ought to work to move and implement a powerful legislative framework setting the minimal age of marriage at 18, with no exceptions. That’s the solely means to make sure full and free consent. It’s incumbent upon policymakers, advocates, and group members to face up towards little one marriage and different dangerous gender-based practices, and to uphold everybody’s basic proper to bodily autonomy and dignity.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.