Child marriage is an urgent problem in California. Dangerous legal loopholes allow parents to enter a child of ANY AGE into marriage with judicial approval — without any real legal recourse for a child who does not want to marry.
Our research shows that some 23,588 minors were entered into marriage in California between 2000 and 2018 — often with devastating, lifelong consequences for the girls. All of these marriages legalized what would have been considered a sex crime outside of marriage. There’s a reason the U.S. State Department has called marriage before 18 a “human rights abuse.”
This calls for a protest.
We will Chain-In in Sacramento on June 22. We will wear bridal gowns and chains to urge legislators to introduce and pass a simple, commonsense bill that would end child marriage in California.
Speakers at the Chain-In will include:
- Asm. Cottie Petrie-Norris, legislative champion
- Davinder Kaur, forced marriage survivor
- Mandy Havlik, child marriage survivor
- Sara Tasneem, child marriage advocate and survivor
- Fatemah, child marriage survivor
- Chavie Weisberger, forced marriage survivor
- Marilyn Smith, child marriage survivor
- Pat Abatemarco, child marriage survivor
- Dr. Tamara MC, survivor advocate
- Ela Pandya, Zonta International
- Michele Hanash, AHA Foundation
- Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last
- More to come
We also will sing and chant against forced and child marriage, including a rendition of The Girls You Have Destroyed, a chilling poem/song we wrote about child marriage in the United States.
Chain-In Sacramento
June 22 | 8:30 a.m.
West Steps of the California State Capitol
1315 10th St., Sacramento, CA
Chain-In Sacramento is possible thanks to a generous grant from the Conboy Foundation.
Child Marriage in the United States
We at Unchained started and now lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in the United States by making the marriage age 18, no exceptions, in all 50 states.
Marriage before 18 can too easily be forced, because minors, even a day before their 18th birthday, have limited legal rights that make resisting or escaping an unwanted marriage nearly impossible. Further, marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys American girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and greatly increases their risk of experiencing violence.
Join the movement. Chain-In with us to demand an end to this human rights abuse.