Child marriage’s days are numbered, as we wage battle across the U.S. to eliminate this human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.
Our tiny but feisty team is meeting nonstop — in person and virtually — with legislators in Colorado and Ohio to promote pending bills that would ban all marriage before age 18, without exceptions, as well as promoting pending bills in Kansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
We are also supporting pending legislation in Arizona, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin, even though these bills are less likely to pass.
We are on the ground in California, pushing legislators to emerge from the Dark Ages and introduce legislation to move the marriage age — currently ZERO — to 18.
We are pushing back against weak or harmful bills. South Dakota wants to keep the marriage age at 16 with so-called “safeguards” that do not protect 16- and 17-year-olds. Nebraska wants to set the marriage age at 18 — but Nebraska’s age of adulthood is 19, so the bill would fail to protect 18-year-olds. Illinois‘ pending bill needs some major edits before it would actually ban underage marriage.
As you know, we already have helped to ban child marriage in 16 U.S. states, and we will not stop until we get the remaining 34. Follow our progress!
