This was a good week for all of us who want to end child marriage in America.
Monday: We at Unchained At Last joined other advocates and child-marriage survivor Naila Amin in Hartford to testify in support of Connecticut‘s bill to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions.
Tuesday: The New York Senate voted unanimously to approve the bill we helped to write to decrease child marriage. The bill would end marriage before 17, a first step toward ending all child marriage.
Wednesday: We stood with Pennsylvania Rep. Perry Warren to announce he is going to introduce a bill to end all marriage before 18.
Thursday: We and our ally, the Tahirih Justice Center, testified in Annapolis in support of the bill we helped to write in Maryland to end all marriage before 18.
Sadly, also on Thursday the New Hampshire house of representatives voted against a bill to end child marriage.
Still, the progress continues: This coming Monday, the New Jersey senate will vote on the bill we helped to write, also to end all marriage before 18. If the senate approves the bill, and the governor approves it, New Jersey will become the first state to end all child marriage, without exceptions.
Let’s keep up this momentum! Please keep contacting your legislators and your governor to urge them to protect children from the human-rights abuse that is child marriage.