United States’ child marriage problem

Child marriage — or marriage before age 18 — remains legal in most of the U.S. And it is happening at an alarming rate: According to research from Unchained At Last, more than 315,000 children, some as young as 10, were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2021. Most were girls wed to adult men.

Child marriage creates a nightmarish legal trap, due to minors’ limited legal rights. They cannot easily leave home, enter a domestic violence shelter, retain an attorney or even file for divorce. Further, child marriage is recognized as a human rights abuse that destroys nearly every aspect of an American girl’s life.

And child marriage undermines statutory rape laws: At least 66,415 marriages in the U.S. since 2000 occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.

Current U.S. laws effectively legalize the trafficking of minors. That’s because federal law does not specify a minimum age to emigrate to the United States as a spouse or fiancé nor to petition in this country for a foreign spouse or fiancé. Instead, the federal government defers to the marriage age in the state where the couple will reside.

That means an American girl of any age can legally be trafficked for her citizenship — in other words, forced to marry an adult man from overseas so he can get a U.S. visa. It also means American men can legally import child brides of any age from overseas. (Nearly all the thousands of teens trafficked in this way are girls.)

National Coalition to End Child Marriage in the U.S.

Unchained At Last and Equality Now have convened the National Coalition to End Child Marriage in the United States to bring together organizations and individuals determined to end child marriage in the U.S.

The mission of the coalition is to end all marriage before age 18 in the U.S., without exception. The coalition pursues various approaches in pursuit of this mission, including:

• Amending the federal laws that encourage child marriage; and

• Supporting state-level advocacy to set a marriage age of 18, no exceptions, in every U.S. state.

All civil society organizations that are committed to ending child marriage in the United States and agree with the coalition’s mission, including Girls Not Brides members, are invited to join the coalition. Survivors of child marriage also are invited to join.

Message for survivors of child marriage: Whether or not you join the National Coalition to End Child Marriage, you can contact Unchained At Last here to get support.

Co-convenors

Steering Committee

Organization Allies

Survivor Allies