473
‘I was handed to a complete stranger’: the survivors fighting to end child marriage in 37 US states — and the people who want to keep it legal (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 4 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world
56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Child marriage, which activists describe as one or both parties entering a union while under age 18, remains legal in 37 US states. There are no federal laws against it, meaning minors can marry, with parental consent, before they can vote, drink, or buy lottery tickets in the majority of the country. Some states have a minimum marriage age on the books, which ranges from 15 to 18. Four states – California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Mississippi – do not specify any minimum age at all.

Many survivors say they felt trapped in their marriages. Some, like Kosnik, must rely on their spouses for financial support. Others are up against complicit parents, who sign off on forced unions. In many states, statuatory rape is not a crime within marriage, creating a legal loophole that entices predators and increases the likelihood of sexual abuse. “Child marriage can be seen as a workaround for child rape,” said Fraidy Reiss, founder of Unchained at Last.

The US government calls child marriage a human rights abuse and has committed up to $5.3m to prevent it “in regions, countries, and communities where interventions are most needed and most likely to achieve results”. American exceptionalism would lead people to associate these regions with the global south, not the US, Gupta says. “Of course it’s prevalent here, too.”

Close to 300,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2018 in the US, according to a study conducted by Unchained at Last; a small number of them were as young as 10. Because 78% of minors who wed in that timespan were girls with adult husbands, advocates frame their cause around saving underage girls from older men.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] mecfs@lemmy.world 26 points 4 months ago

Things are (way too slowly) getting better:

As of June 2024, 13 states have banned underage marriages, with no exception: Delaware (2018),[2]New Jersey (2018),[3] Pennsylvania (2020),[4]Minnesota (2020),[5] Rhode Island (2021),[6] New York (2021),[7] Massachusetts (2022),[8] Vermont(2023),[9] Connecticut (2023),[10] Michigan(2023),[11] Washington (2024),[12] Virginia (2024)[13] and New Hampshire (2024).[14] American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, all United States territories, have also ended child marriage in that time.[15][16] Several other U.S. states have similar legislation pending.[17]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States

[-] jumjummy@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

How the hell does California, a relatively progressive state compared to many of the other US ones, still allow child marriages? I’m sure it’s those pockets of deep red outside the big cities.

[-] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I looked it up, the ACLU said it "unnecessarily intrudes on the fundamental rights of marriage without due cause" and fought prior attempts to legislate against it. Planned Parenthood were against it because they said it was a slippery slope that might affect abortion rights (I didn't see rational for this supplied but assume they have some)

So it wasn't Hollywood as the other poster glibly asserted, actually movies like 'childbrides of the ozarks' were important in brining it to popular attention and helping initial pushes against it. Currently there are democrats pushing for legislation to ban in, supported in many case by the 'evil Hollywood elites' as seen from conspiracy theory world as they're big donors and fund raisers for democratic causes but also ACLU and PP so possibly yeah they were slightly involved in the ban being resisted but not in the way suggested.

The ACLU have since chances their stance on child marriage, I imagine planned parenthood have too but I couldn't find that stated. Most current resistance is coming from religious focused Republicans.

[-] jumjummy@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Most current resistance is coming from religious focused Republicans.

Yep, that’s on brand for sure.

[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 5 points 4 months ago

Hollywood. Think about it.

[-] drdiddlybadger@pawb.social 5 points 4 months ago

Blessed good news.

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
473 points (99.0% liked)

News

23367 readers
1842 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world