We refuse to stay silent while California Asm. Ash Kalra blocks the widely popular bill to end child marriage, a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.
So does Alyssa Milano, the actress and activist who helped launch the #MeToo movement.
Alyssa and our founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss just co-authored this op-ed article for Kalra’s hometown paper, in which they blast him and the two groups that are pressuring him to block the legislation: American Civil Liberties Union of California and Planned Parenthood of California.
Unlike their affiliates in nearly every other U.S. state — and despite International Planned Parenthood Federation’s calling child marriage “one of the most persistent forms of sanctioned sexual abuse of girls” — these two California groups have taken an outrageous and passionate position in support of a harmful practice the rest of the world has vowed to eliminate by year 2030 to help achieve gender equality.
Please share the op-ed and take a minute to email Kalra to urge him to stop blocking the legislation.
It’s a sad day for girls in Missouri: The bill to end child marriage officially died after the state House of Representatives refused to move the bill the state Senate had passed with near-unanimous support.
Rep. Hardy Billington, one of the bill’s opponents, insisted pregnant teens must get married lest they turn instead to abortion — even though abortion is pretty much impossible in Missouri, which has one of the strictest bans in the United States.
We promise not to give up on girls in Missouri or any other state: We’ll keep pushing to make the marriage age #18NoExceptions in all 50 states. And we know we can count on you to keep pushing with us.
Not to brag (OK, totally to brag), but New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof gave us a shout-out in his new memoir, Chasing Hope, as he recalled learning how prevalent child marriage was in the United States, thanks to our work. Read the segment of his book that mentions us below, or read the full book, available here.
Our tireless advocacy continues to pay off: The New Hampshire house just voted 192-174 to end child marriage, a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives. The bill now goes to Gov. Chris Sununu’s desk. (!!!)
We’ve been pushing the New Hampshire legislature to eliminate this human rights abuse since 2017, so this is a hard-fought win.
We promise we will not stop until all 50 U.S. states make the marriage age 18, no exceptions.
It’s a lucky day for social workers: We are looking to add a couple more to our team as we continue to combat forced and child marriage in the U.S. through direct services and systems change.
Just when we thought we would finally end child marriage in California and eliminate a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives, we learned a single powerful legislator plans to kill or water down the bill on Tuesday.
We cannot let that happen.
Please take a minute now to submit a pre-filled email to the legislator — and please ask all your friends to do the same. Because girls matter.
Our tireless advocacy continues to pay off: The Missouri senate voted 31-1 today to end child marriage, a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives. The bill now heads to the house.
We promise we will not stop until all 50 U.S. states make the marriage age 18, no exceptions. Because girls matter.
Virginia is now the 12th U.S. state to ban child marriage!
Last night Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed legislation championed by Del. Karen Keys-Gammara to make the marriage age 18, no exceptions.
This means Virginia is now closing a dangerous legal loophole that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to be legally trafficked under the guise of marriage. The loophole also allowed teens to be entered into the serious contract of marriage before they have the full rights of adulthood, which created a nightmarish legal trap for them. And the loophole ignored the reality that marriage before age 18 is recognized as a human rights abuse that destroys nearly every aspect of a girl’s life.
Our research found that some 7,876 minors as young as 12 were entered into marriage in Virginia between 2000 and 2021, including at least 65 who were married since the current law went into effect — and more than 80% were girls wed to adult men. Almost all of the marriages since 2000 involved a minor who was not even old enough to consent to sex with their spouse.
This is a stunning victory for the nearly 9.2 million girls in the 12 states where we have helped to end child marriage. In Virginia, we helped to write the new law after we compiled in-depth legal research conducted on a pro bono basis by the law firms White & Case and DLA Piper. We met with Gov. Youngkin’s office to encourage him to support this legislation — and launched an email campaign to urge his constituents to do the same.
And it worked!
Supporters like Roberts Family Foundation, Focus For Health and the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago made our work possible with their generosity. And you made this victory possible, if you took action on our email campaigns, shared our posts on social media or supported us financially.
Virginia has now joined Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan and Washington in embracing the simple, commonsense legislative solution we are pushing in all 50 U.S. states: Set the marriage age at 18, without exceptions. Such legislation harms no one, costs nothing and ends a human rights abuse.
Only 38 states to go — and we can’t do it without you! Please donate now.
Every year, we at Unchained At Last host a parallel event to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women – the world’s largest annual gathering on women’s rights.
This year, we were joined by Ashley Flowers of Crime Junkie, who led a conversation with American forced and child marriage survivors about how they escaped their nightmare and why they now have partnered with us to make sure the U.S. keeps its promise – under the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals – to eliminate forced and child marriage by year 2030 and help achieve gender equality.
Some 300 people joined us today at the Church Center for the U.N. and on Zoom for our hybrid event. If you weren’t one of them, don’t worry; you can watch a recording of the event below.
It’s your last chance to register for True Crime: Forced Marriage in the U.S., featuring Crime Junkie’s Ashley Flowers.
We hope to see you either in person at the United Nations or via Zoom tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET for this hybrid parallel event to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women
