World Courant
On April 4, the Virginia state legislature voted to vary state regulation, elevating the wedding age to 18. Just a few days later, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed this measure into regulation.
This vote came about throughout Sexual Assault Consciousness Month within the US and was an necessary victory for kids’s rights. Defending weak minors from sexual violence also needs to embody banning baby marriage in america. However Virginia is barely the twelfth U.S. state to ban baby marriage. The remaining eleven carried out their bans between 2017 and 2024. Because of this till 2017, baby marriage was authorized within the US underneath sure circumstances: if the mother and father or a decide agreed, or if the minor was pregnant or had a baby. These loopholes allowed the apply to stay widespread.
Solely twelve of the fifty states have bans on baby marriage, which is an embarrassingly low quantity. Rather more must be accomplished. We should ban baby marriage nationwide.
Though Individuals typically consider it as a “international” drawback, baby marriage is surprisingly widespread within the U.S., spanning totally different areas, religions and cultures, a brand new examine from the Inhabitants Institute exhibits. titled Behind Closed Doorways: Exposing and Addressing Dangerous Gendered Practices in america. Between 2000 and 2018, an estimated 300,000 minors underneath the age of 18 have been legally married within the US. California, for instance, doesn’t specify a minimal age for marriage, and greater than 8,000 kids get married there yearly.
Eighty-six p.c of kid marriages reported within the U.S. occurred between adults and minors, normally ladies between the ages of 16 and 17, however generally as younger as 12. Marrying them to grownup males creates a dangerously imbalanced energy dynamic that will increase the chance of home and sexual violence.
To be clear, baby marriage is a type of gender-based violence and a violation of human rights. Along with bodily and emotional abuse, minors are at higher danger of poverty and exploitation and are denied instructional and financial alternatives. It’s the main trigger of faculty dropout amongst adolescent ladies worldwide. Within the U.S., girls who marry earlier than age 19 are 50 p.c extra prone to drop out of highschool, 4 instances much less prone to graduate from school and 31 p.c extra prone to stay in poverty. Its penalties reverberate all through their lives, perpetuating cycles of intergenerational poverty.
However since there isn’t a complete federal regulation setting a minimal age for marriage, and the patchwork of state legal guidelines on baby marriage are inconsistent and riddled with holes, the apply persists. The parable of American exceptionalism, the contradictory perception that baby marriage is another person’s drawback and that it will probably’t occur right here, blocks constructive public dialogue and efficient laws.
This misplaced perception fuels a cycle of neglect and inaction that stops states from implementing efficient measures.
Opposition to introducing a ban on baby marriage additionally comes from each conservative and progressive teams. Conservatives argue that this may hinder spiritual freedom. Progressives fear it might take away minors’ sexual and reproductive selections.
However baby marriage threatens a baby’s bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom greater than any ban ever might. Ending it’s extra necessary to the well being and dignity of America’s kids than preserving outdated traditions. They want safety from getting into into authorized contracts they can not escape, and the empowerment to make their very own selections about their lives.
Whereas the US has spoken out strongly in opposition to baby and compelled marriage in different international locations, legal guidelines in opposition to it within the US are patchy, weak and fail to guard these in danger. In actual fact, most U.S. states overwhelmingly fail to satisfy worldwide baby rights requirements.
Ending baby marriage within the US will first require recognizing that it’s an pressing, ongoing home drawback. Additional stigmatizing the apply or excluding affected communities is not going to assist. U.S. policymakers ought to deal with educating survivors to grasp the basis causes and actual penalties of kid marriage, and work with them to construct help for baby marriage bans in each state.
Survivor-led advocacy contains elevating consciousness, passing efficient, enforceable laws, investing in complete intercourse schooling, and increasing supportive reproductive well being providers and assets. Authorities authorities ought to help such efforts.
All states ought to work to undertake and implement a powerful legislative framework that units the minimal age for marriage at 18, with out exceptions. That’s the solely strategy to assure full and free consent. It’s incumbent upon policymakers, advocates, and neighborhood members to face up in opposition to baby marriage and different dangerous gender-based practices, and to uphold everybody’s elementary proper to bodily autonomy and dignity.
The views expressed on this article are these of the creator and don’t essentially replicate the editorial place of Al Jazeera.
Youngster marriage is an issue within the US that requires pressing motion | Youngsters’s rights
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