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New Hampshire Raises Legal Marriage Age to 18 Without Exceptions
News
June 14th, 2024Governor Chris Sununu has signed SB 359 into law raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exceptions in New Hampshire, making it the 13th state to end child marriage.
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Virginia Makes History as 12th State and First in the South to End Child Marriage
News
April 9th, 2024HB 994 becomes law ending child marriage in Virginia by establishing a minimum marriage age of 18 without exceptions.
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Virginia Could Become a Leader in the Movement to End Child Marriage – Again
News
March 28th, 2024Hellitz Villegas, the Forced Marriage Initiative Program Manager at the Tahirih Justice Center, wrote this op-ed in support of Virginia bill HB 994 ending child marriage in Virginia by setting […]
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Governor Inslee Signs Bill to End Child Marriage in Washington, Setting Historic Precedent on the West Coast
News
March 8th, 2024Today, Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill that ends child marriage in the state of Washington by raising the legal age for marriage to 18 without exceptions. This significant step marks a historical moment for Washington as it becomes the first state on the West Coast and the 11th state in the country to end child marriage.
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Ending Child Marriage in the United States: Progress, Lessons Learned, and Where We Go from Here
News
November 6th, 2023Imagine being forced to marry as a child, having your innocence, dreams, goals, aspirations, and your entire childhood taken from you. Between 2000 and 2018, this was the harsh reality for over 300,000 minors married in the United States, and most of these cases involved girls marrying adult men, some decades older. Since 2016, a nationwide movement has emerged, leading to reforms in 34 states that either limit or end child marriage.
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Connecticut Becomes 9th U.S. State to End Child Marriage
News
June 23rd, 2023Today, Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz signed a bill that ends child marriage in Connecticut by raising the legal age for marriage to 18 without exceptions. This makes Connecticut the 9th state to completely end child marriage and the second state to end child marriage this year, after Vermont.
Connecticut saw over 1,200 children marry between 2000 and 2014, and prior to 2017 had no minimum marriage age. They are now the second state to succeed in an incremental approach to ending child marriage: a 2017 reform setting an age floor of 16 and ensuring universal judicial review cut rates of child marriage in the state by about half, mitigating harm while advocates and legislators continued building support for an end to child marriage this year.
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DC Could Become a Leader in the Movement to Protect Children from Child Marriage
News
June 12th, 2023D.C. has not yet joined the 31 states that have passed laws taking aim at child marriage and our laws still allow 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with nothing more than one parent’s signature. It’s time for our city to update our antiquated marriage laws and put the wellbeing of our children first.