CHILD USA considers “child marriage” to be a form of “forced marriage,” as minors are legally incapable of providing consent. CHILD USA defines  “child marriage” as a formal marriage or informal union where one or both parties is under the age of eighteen.  Today, the global rates of child marriage are high.  According to UNICEF, approximately twelve million girls — or one in five — across the world are married before their eighteenth birthday each year.  In the United States, child marriage is a pervasive issue with devastating domestic consequences.  Between 2000 and 2018, almost 300,000 children were married in the United States alone, with approximately 30,000 to 60,000 of those marriages occurring at a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.

In the absence of a federal prohibition against child marriage, most state laws still offer avenues through which child marriage persists. Indeed, state child marriage laws are fraught with legal loopholes; while many states set the age floor for marriage at eighteen, many exceptions to this rule can, in effect, drop the true minimum marriage age much lower. Common loopholes include parental consent, judicial approval, and lack of official proof of age and residency requirements.

Child marriage is a gendered practice with grave social, financial, physical, and psychological consequences.  The United States Department of State has called marriage before 18 a “humans rights abuse” that “produces devastating repercussions for a girl’s life, effectively ending her childhood.”  To protect children and secure their futures, the practice of child marriage must be outlawed.  The movement to end child marriage and sex abuse in the United States is growing, and CHILD USA is dedicated to reforming the laws to ensure children are not married before the age of 18.

CHILD USA REPORTS

CURRENT LEGISLATION