This column was originally published by Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider.
We’re now five down, 45 to go in our national movement to end child marriage in every U.S. state. We just stood beside Gov. Daniel McKee and the bill’s sponsors — Rep. Julie Casimiro and Sen. John Burke — as the governor signed H5387/S398 and made Rhode Island the fifth U.S. state to ban all marriage before 18, without exceptions. !!
We have been advocating relentlessly for months for this historic victory. Along with our allies at AHA Foundation, American Atheists, CHILD USA, Global Hope 365, Human Rights Watch, J Strategies, National Coalition to End Child Marriage, Students Against Child Marriage, UNICEF USA and Zonta International, and numerous child marriage survivors, we met with or called every state legislator. We testified at legislative hearings and submitted memos of support. We compiled in-depth legal research conducted on a pro bono basis by the law firms White & Case, DLA Piper and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. We partnered with Lush, whose generosity made all this work possible. You joined us too, if you shared our posts on social media or supported us financially.
The previous law in Rhode Island created a nightmarish legal trap: Minors of any age could be entered into marriage by a parent and/or a judge, without any input from the minor — before the minor was old enough to leave home, enter a domestic violence shelter, retain an attorney or even file for divorce. Minors could be married off before they were old enough to consent to sex.
Child marriage therefore was often forced marriage and, in some cases, covered up rape. Further, marriage before 18 produces such devastating, lifelong repercussions for girls that the U.S. State Department has called it a human rights abuse.
An estimated 171 children in Rhode Island were subjected to this human rights abuse between 2000 and 2018 — and some 88% were girls wed to adult men. But that will never happen again.
To date, our advocacy has helped to end child marriage — without exceptions — in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Rhode Island. The New York legislature last week passed a bill to end child marriage, and it is waiting for the governor’s signature. Let’s move on to the next state together. #18NoExceptions
So we’re trying to stay calm here, but the New York assembly just voted UNANIMOUSLY to end child marriage (A3891, sponsored by Asm. Phil Ramos).
And the senate already passed the bill (S3086, sponsored by Sen. Julia Salazar).
Which means the bill now heads to the governor’s desk, and NEW YORK MIGHT SOON BECOME THE SIXTH U.S. STATE TO END CHILD MARRIAGE!
Please take a moment to email Gov. Cuomo, call him (518-474-8390) and tweet at him (@NYGovCuomo) to urge him to sign S3086.
Did you register yet for our virtual discussion with Chelsea Clinton on June 17? We’ll talk with her and others — including author and influencer Blair Imani — about our groundbreaking study of child marriage in the U.S.
Also joining us will be bipartisan state senators Julia Salazar (New York) and Katrina Shealy (South Carolina), each who leads the charge to end child marriage in her state; Dr. Yvette Efevbera of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and survivor and advocate Patricia Abatemarco.
This event is sponsored by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.
United States’ Child Marriage Problem
Thursday, June 17, 2021
3 p.m. – 4 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. CT / 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. PT
Register here (required)
Victory dance, please. The Rhode Island House of Representatives just unanimously passed the bill we and our allies have been promoting relentlessly to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions — H5387, sponsored by Rep. Julie Casimiro.
As you may recall, the state senate unanimously passed the senate version last week, so the bill now heads to Gov. Daniel McKee’s desk for his signature. Are we about to see the fifth U.S. state end a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives?
The United States has a child marriage problem, our new study proves.
Join us and Chelsea Clinton on June 17 for a virtual discussion of the groundbreaking study, which found nearly 300,000 children were legally married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 — mostly girls wed to adult men, typically before the girls were old enough to file for divorce or enter a domestic violence shelter. Some 60,000 marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.
We’ll mark our 10th anniversary by talking with bipartisan legislators, advocates and a survivor about the grave implications of child marriage for girls, women and society — and about the simple solution that is available.
United States’ Child Marriage Problem
June 17, 2021
3 p.m. – 4 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. PT
RSVP here (required)
Moderator
~ Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation
Speakers
~ New York Sen. Julia Salazar
~ South Carolina Sen. Katrina Shealy
~ Dr. Yvette Efevbera, Advisor, Gender-Based Violence and Child Marriage, Gender Equality at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
~ Blair Imani, author, educator and influencer
~ Patricia Abatemarco, child marriage survivor and mental health advocate
~ Fraidy Reiss, founder/executive director at Unchained At Last
Sponsored by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton
About the Study
Child marriage is legal in most of the U.S., but many Americans remain unaware of the prevalence of child marriage in their country — possibly because no central repository collects national marriage-age data in the U.S., and some states do not track or publicize these data.
We sought to change that with our new study. Thanks to funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we partnered with McGill University, Quest Research & Investigations, Kroll and Quantitative Analysis on the first-ever study that employed state-by-state data collection and various estimation methods to determine the full extent of child marriage in the U.S.
About Unchained At Last
This event marks our 10th anniversary as the only organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States through direct services and advocacy.
We provide crucial legal and social services, always for free, to help women, girls and others in the U.S. to escape forced marriages. At the same time, we push for social, policy and legal change; we started and now lead a growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level.
We have a double dose of good news!
The New York senate just approved S3086, sponsored by Sen. Julia Salazar, to end child marriage. And, at nearly the same time, the Rhode Island senate UNANIMOUSLY approved S398, sponsored by Sen. John Burke, to do the same.
Both bills still need approval in the lower house — but New York and Rhode Island are now one step closer to becoming the fifth and sixth U.S. states to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions.
The next step should come soon: In Rhode Island, the house judiciary committee will vote tomorrow on H5387, sponsored by Rep. Julie Casimiro. In New York, A3891, sponsored by Asm. Phil Ramos, is awaiting a vote in the assembly judiciary committee.
If you live in Rhode Island or New York, make sure your legislators know you want them to vote YES on ending child marriage.
Mark your calendar: You are invited to join us June 17 for a virtual discussion — moderated by Chelsea Clinton — of our new study of the extent of child marriage in the U.S.
We found that nearly 300,000 children, a few as young as 10, married recently in the U.S. — mostly girls wed to adult men. Some 60,000 marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.
United States’ Child Marriage Problem
June 17, 2021 | 3pm ET/12pm PT
Online
Details are coming soon.
The United States has a child marriage problem – but a simple solution is available.
Nearly 300,000 children — a few as young as 10 — were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018.
These findings confirm the importance of the growing national movement we lead to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level.
Fraidy Reiss, Opinion Contributor Apr 11, 2021, 10:02 AM
Demonstrators, including the author of this piece, wearing bridal gowns and veils protest at the Massachusetts State House to urge legislators to end Massachusetts child marriage on March 27, 2019. David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
OPINION
Great news for child rapists: You don’t need to be a congressman or beloved film director to get away with your crimes. You just need a marriage license — and that is not too difficult to obtain.
Nearly 300,000 children, defined as under 18 years of age, were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, according to a new study by Unchained At Last — the nonprofit I founded to end forced and child marriage in the US — and McGill University. A few of the children were as young as 10. Most were girls wed to adult men, typically before the girls were old enough to legally file for divorce.
Some 60,000 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age, or with a spousal age difference, that should have constituted a sex crime under the relevant state’s laws. In about 12% of those cases, the marriage was legal under state law, but sex within the marriage was still a crime. With each of those marriage licenses, the state sent a child home to be raped.
In the other 88% of those cases, state law specifically granted a marriage exception for what would otherwise have been considered statutory rape. In essence, each of those marriage licenses became a “get out of jail free” card for a would-be rapist.
“Why is it legal to rape a 16-year-old if you’re married?” asked Chloe Rockwell, 21.
Rockwell was 16 when the 22-year-old man she had met online convinced her to marry him so he would not be prosecuted as her pregnant belly became obvious. In Idaho, where they lived, sex with a 16-year-old is punishable by up to life in prison if the perpetrator is three or more years older than the minor — unless they are married to each other.
“He literally googled how to get away with statutory rape, and it said you can’t be charged if the underage girl is your wife,” Rockwell said.
The federal criminal code, too, prohibits sex with a child age 12 to 15, but specifically exempts those who first marry the child.
Since child marriage remains legal in 46 US states, with some states setting no minimum age for marriage, the legal code essentially creates an open invitation to predators. The four US states that have ended marriage before age 18 — Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota — did so only in the last three years. Bills to end child marriage are pending in another 12 states, but some have stalled.
While most states set 18 as the marriage age, legal loopholes in 46 states still allow minors to marry, typically with nothing more than a parent’s signature on a form (parental “consent” that, in Unchained’s experience, is often actually parental “coercion”) and/or a judge’s rubber stamp. Five states’ laws still include an archaic pregnancy loophole, which seems designed to cover up rape and force girls to marry their rapist.
“This didn’t happen to me in a far-off country,” said Patricia Abatemarco, 55, who was 14 and pregnant when her parents married her off to the 28-year-old Bible study counselor who had been raping her for two years. “I was raised in an upper-middle-class, suburban home in Minnesota.”
Federal law also does not specify a minimum age to petition for a foreign spouse or fiancé, or to be the beneficiary of a spousal or fiancé visa. A kindergartner must wait until she is 21 to petition for her parents to come to the US, but she can legally petition, during naptime, for her 80-year-old husband to get a visa and, in most states, permission to rape her without fear of prosecution.
This is essentially an invitation to traffic girls under the guise of marriage. The US approved 8,868 spousal or fiancé visas involving a minor between 2007 and 2017, according to the US Senate Homeland Security Committee. The younger party was a girl in 95% of the cases.
Most of the children who married recently in the US were girls married to adult men an average of four years older, and sometimes much older, Unchained’s new study found. Nearly all the minors were age 16 or 17, the ages at which they are least likely to get sympathy from legislators, even though their limited legal rights create a nightmarish legal trap and a serious power imbalance between the minor and their adult spouse.
Even “mature” 16- or 17-year-olds are still not legal adults, and therefore can easily be forced to marry or to stay in an unwanted marriage. They can be forced into a marriage with little or no input from them, typically by a parent or a judge, before they are legally allowed to leave home. Those who do try to leave, to escape an impending forced marriage or abusive spouse, often have nowhere to go, since Unchained has found that most domestic violence shelters turn away unaccompanied minors.
Minors typically are not even allowed to file for divorce on their own, since they cannot independently bring a legal action. And Unchained has found that divorce attorneys often are reluctant to take them on as clients, since contracts with minors, including retainer agreements, usually are voidable.
When teens reach out to Unchained to beg for help escaping a forced marriage and learn of their limited options, many end up attempting suicide. Death seems like the only way out for them.
Marriage before age 18, including at ages 16 or 17, is a “human rights abuse” according to the US State Department. It devastates American girls’ education, economic opportunities, and health. It puts women at significantly increased risk of experiencing domestic violence. And child marriage almost always ends in divorce.
Both Abatemarco and Rockwell suffered abuse during their marriage, and both are now divorced. Both women saw their education interrupted. Rockwell was thrust into poverty; Abatemarco struggled with alcoholism and still struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ending child marriage requires simple, commonsense legislation that Unchained and its allies have been advocating since 2015 that harms no one — except child rapists — and costs nothing. We need to demand that lawmakers in 46 states and at the federal level pass legislation to ban child marriage now.
“I’m relatively intact, but the scars will always be there,” Abatemarco said. “If we can make that not happen for a girl, then let’s do that.”
Fraidy Reiss is a forced marriage survivor and the founder/executive director of Unchained At Last, a nonprofit that combats forced and child marriage in the US through direct services and advocacy.
We’re hiring! As we continue to grow, we are seeking a Director of Client Services who will guide women, girls, LGBTQ individuals and others as they escape forced marriages.
Please apply if you:
