In a major campaign win, the US state of Maine just passed legislation to ban marriage for those under 18 years of age, reports WGAN. The new legislation closes a dangerous legal loophole that allows parents or a judge to push 17-year-olds into child marriage with no requirement for consent.
Marriage before 18 is “human rights abuse”
In 2020, Maine raised the legal age for marriage to 16. Prior to that, the law in Maine allowed a parent to marry off their child at any age. Three years later, the law raised the age to 17. But to anti-child marriage advocates, the law still didn’t go far enough. Research by advocacy group Unchained at Last found that some 1,174 minors were wed in Maine between 2000 and 2023. Concerningly, 77% of the minors were girls who were wed to adult men who were, on average, 3.7 years older.
An Unchained at Last statement highlights,
“Child marriage creates a nightmarish legal trap that destroys nearly every aspect of an American girl’s life. There’s a reason the U.S. State Department has called marriage before 18 a “human rights abuse.”
Before the 2023 legislation passed, 79% of the minors married in Maine were aged 17. Even worse, before the 2020 change, 100% of the minors who married were between 16 and 17. Representative Laura Supica sponsored the new bill, which finally banned all child marriage. In a committee testimony, she underlined that 17-year-olds are not equipped to navigate the legal system. Supica also pointed out that “those who marry at 17 years old also (have) high rates of divorce.”
36 states still to go
Maine has now joined a growing list of states banning all forms of child marriage. Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Washington, Virginia, and New Hampshire have all adopted commonsense legislative solutions.
Representative Supica stated,
“Too many children are forced into marriages, and while even those over 18 years of age can be forced, the difference is that when they are able to flee, they have greater access to services to help them sufficiently escape an abuser.”
Additionally, in the US, teens become recognized as adults under the law at 18. That means they have legal standing in the courts. So, raising the age requirement for marriage to 18 also gives married teens the legal agency to leave or divorce, helping prevent exploitation and abuse.
It’s for reasons like those that Freedom United, together with partners Unchained at Last and others, is campaigning for the US to set the marriage age at 18, without exceptions. Such legislation harms no one, costs nothing, and ends a human rights abuse of one of the most vulnerable populations, children. Join us and our partners and help send a message that every child in every state deserves the same protection.
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