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.