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Child marriage remains legal in most U.S. states, leaving minors open to abuse and vulnerabilities within the legal system, advocates say.
Only 12 states currently have a minimum marriage age of 18, and about 300,000 children have gotten married since 2000, according to Unchained at Last, an organization that fights for laws banning child marriage. Advocates warn that married minors face unique challenges in breaking out of poverty, are left vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse, and may struggle to gain access to the systems intended to protect abuse victims.
Jenn Bradbury is among those who got married before becoming an adult.
Bradbury, now 45, married a 44-year-old friend of her father when she was 16 years old, after what she told Newsweek was years of grooming that began when she was 14.
She said that when her father found out about the abuse, he blamed and tried to kill her, leading to her mother removing her from her father's home in Louisiana and moving her to Florida, but the abuse did not end, Bradbury said.
The friend of her father continued to visit, providing a house phone and utilities for her family while she says he continued sexually abusing her, eventually leading to an ectopic pregnancy.
Bradbury says that her mother believed the only way to fix the situation was to have the two get married, so they did. Years of challenges would follow.
"The judge didn't stop it. The clerk didn't say anything. No one stopped it. They just let it happen because it's allowed," Bradbury said.
She eventually left her marriage and now uses her experience to advocate for states to change their laws to end child marriage. She has testified about her experience in states including Connecticut and Massachusetts, which have both stopped allowing the practice of child marriage.
Up until 2018, every state still allowed child marriage. Then Delaware became the first to end the practice. Several others have followed suit, with Virginia being the latest to do so in April. New Hampshire could become the next state to end child marriage, as a bipartisan bill to end it is awaiting Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's signature.
But the majority of states still allow child marriage and a bill that would end the practice in Missouri failed to garner enough support to pass the legislature earlier in May.
Child Marriage May Be 'Frying Pan to Fire' Situation
Child marriage is often "hiding in plain sight," Casey Swegman, director of public policy at the Tahirih Justice Center, told Newsweek.
Children may be forced into marriages for many reasons, such as attempts to control female sexuality, "correct" a person's sexuality or cover up statutory rape, she said, adding the issue affects all communities, regardless of religious background and socioeconomic status.
"When we think about a child who is entering a legal contract with an adult, an adult who has years more life experience, who better understands their rights and resources, you are entering an imbalanced relationship from day one, whether its forced or not," Swegman said.
Some teenagers may view marriage as an escape from a home where there is addiction or unmet mental health needs, but they are "often going from a frying pan to fire situation," Swegman warned. There is "almost always" sexual abuse in these marriages, which isolate children from family, teachers and friends.
"We see them being preyed upon by predatory adults who can recognize that vulnerability and take advantage of it. And then have 24-hour access to a minor under the guise of marriage," she said.
There are many risks for individuals who enter into marriage before they turn 18. These children are often left with economic, physical, emotional, and legal vulnerabilities, Hayat Bearat, interim director of the Domestic Violence Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.
Research shows children who marry before turning 18—most of whom tend to be in the upper teens, as most states have some laws banning younger children marrying—face higher risks of domestic violence than those who get married as adults. They also are more likely to stay in poverty and less likely to graduate high school and find meaningful work as an adult, she said.
"Children that get married have a higher risk of having mental health issues. They might develop depression, anxiety. There are higher rates of suicide in children that get married," Bearat said.
Bearat highlighted many of the physical, emotional and economic dangers in an article "Caged by a Marriage, How the United States' Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages," published in the Drake Law Review earlier this year.
Married minors are 50 percent more likely to suffer from intimate partner violence or drop out of high school, according to the report. They also face higher risk of substance dependence and health issues such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes.
Married Minors Face Unique Legal Barriers
Children who get married before they turn 18 face unique legal barriers because they are not considered legal adults. They need permission from their guardian—either their spouse or parents, who may be involved in forcing them to marry—to access many of the systems they need to get help.
If their spouse does not give them permission, married minors may struggle to access education or health care, Swegman said.
"We are seeing lots of systems that you need to get out of an abusive relationship close their doors or feel not empowered to serve minors in these instances," Swegman said. "These individuals are really spinning in circles."
For instance, Swegman said she once worked with a client who was told she needed to obtain her husband's permission to attend high school. However, she knew he was "never going to give her that permission."
Children may also be denied social services or the ability to rent an apartment if they try to leave their marriage because they are not an adult and therefore unable to sign into a contract, Swegman said.
They may not even be able to access child protective services. Texas is the only state that has forcing or coercing a child into a marriage in their child protection statute, meaning a married minor has "fallen out of the mandate" of CPS in every other state, she said.
Fraidy Reiss, Unchained at Last's founder and executive director, told Newsweek domestic shelters routinely turn away unaccompanied minors. If children try to run away from home to escape a forced marriage, police may return them because it is a status offense to leave home before the age of 18, she said.
"An adult in this situation might try to retain an attorney to help them figure out where do I go? What do I do? A minor can't easily do even that because contracts with minors typically are voidable," she said. "It's a worthless piece of paper. And what attorney wants to take on a child as a client?"
In many cases, children aren't even able to obtain a divorce or protective order against an abusive spouse due to the "nightmarish legal trap" child marriage creates, she said.
According to Bearat, states such as New York require an individual seeking a divorce to be declared competent to have the capacity to do so. But married minors seeking a divorce could be denied due to not being an adult, therefore not having that capacity in the eyes of the law.
Other states may require a parent or guardian to sign off on a divorce, but they may not be willing to do so if they are the ones responsible for the marriage, Bearat said.
While these children may face barriers to the legal system, there are still many ways for them to seek help, Swegman said.
They can reach out to organizations, such as Tahirih Justice Center or Unchained at Last, that can provide them legal and social resources, as well as help them understand their rights.
Married minors can begin the process by calling from a school counselor's phone or a friend's home if they have a parent willing to support them, or by sending an anonymous email, Swegman said.
Twenty-four hour hotlines are also increasingly knowledgeable about the issue and are able to connect them to critical resources, she said. Swegman said survivors should not reach out for help on a device that could be monitored, as that carries the risk of escalation.
"While it is challenging, it is not impossible and no one is alone, and there are people that can help," she said.
What Are Legal and Policy Solutions to Preventing Child Marriage?
Advocates say the best way to address child marriage is to simply raise the minimum marriage age to 18, when Americans become legally empowered as an adult. This would likely have to happen state-by-state, as states typically have the authority to make their own laws around marriage.
"It's just simple legislation," Bradbury said. "It never requires any money to do anything. It's often just a line change to remove 'with parental permission.'"
There are other policy solutions advocates believe would benefit survivors.
Making it easier for children to obtain protective orders is another piece to the puzzle, according to Swegman. Defining coercing a child into marriage as a form of child abuse can make it easier for married minors to go to CPS to get help. It would provide CPS the resources and a protocol to handle these situations, rather than dismiss it as a family or cultural issue
In Texas, where this is already the law, an order can be taken to prevent the marriage by any protective adult, regardless of whether they are related to the child.
Swegman added the federal government could use incentives, such as increased funding to grant programs, to convince states to raise the minimum marriage age to 18.
Although there is no organized lobby in support of child marriage and there was little pushback from the public in states that already changed their laws, there are two major challenges to convincing lawmakers to support child marriage bills, according to Reiss.
Lawmakers are not always accustomed to prioritizing issues that primarily affect girls—and married minors are girls—Reiss said. Lawmakers often say they'll "get to that" at a later point, after issues they view as more important.
Combating a lack of understanding and awareness is another key barrier, Reiss said. Most Americans do not even know child marriage remains legal in most states, and lawmakers will often "romanticize" the practice, believing it's just two 16-year-olds who want to get married.
"There is nothing romantic about child marriage. There is nothing romantic about a human rights abuse and about a Kafkaesque legal trap that minors cannot easily get out of," she said.
Reiss said her goal is to see every state ban child marriage by 2030.
Another reason some lawmakers may oppose banning child marriage is because it has historically been viewed as a solution to unwanted pregnancy, and some religious communities don't want child marriage bans, according to Bearat.
Bills to ban child marriage have faced opposition from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization argued that a California bill to raise the minimum marriage age to 18 would have "unnecessarily and unduly" intruded "on the fundamental rights of marriage without sufficient cause," reported NBC News.
The ACLU added that "banning marriage under 18, before we have evidence regarding the nature and severity of the problem, however, puts the cart before the horse," according to the report.
When contacted by Newsweek, the ACLU declined to comment.
Planned Parenthood has also opposed legislation aimed at ending child marriage.
In 2023, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California spokesperson Jennifer Wonnacott told The Los Angeles Times it "strongly supports protecting youth from abuse of all kinds" but that those protections should "not impede on the reproductive rights of minors and their ability to decide what is best for them, their health and their lives."
Newsweek has approached Planned Parenthood for additional comment.
In Wyoming, a bill faced opposition from the state's Republican Party, which raised concerns about this legislation denying "the fundamental purpose of marriage."
"Since young men and women may be physically capable of begetting and bearing children prior to the age of 16, marriage MUST remain open to them for the sake of those children," the party wrote in a letter to constituents. "The sad fact that physical maturity often does not match emotional and intellectual maturity is an indictment of our modern educational system. That is a problem that should be addressed. But we should not use it as an excuse to instantiate bad law."
Bradbury said the movement to end child marriage is "snowballing" as some states fear becoming a "destination" for child marriages. Lawmakers don't necessarily say why they oppose these bills but still allow them to stall, she said.
"In Connecticut, they wouldn't hear it. They wouldn't even give it time. So I went down in a wedding dress with a sign, 'end child marriage,' and I sat in the Speaker of the House's parking lot until he showed up. My ask was very simple. I said, 'Just let them vote,'" she said.
That same day, the bill passed unanimously, she said.
Immigration Law Leaves Children Vulnerable
Even if every single state changed their laws to raise the minimum marriage age to 18, U.S. immigration law would still leave children both domestically and abroad vulnerable to abuse, according to Bearat.
The Immigration and Nationality Act does not specify a minimum age requirement for the petitioner or beneficiary of a spousal petition, meaning a child can petition a visa for a partner living in another country, or a U.S. adult can petition for a minor spouse living abroad.
In an 11-year time span, 8,686 petitions were made to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) involving a child, and some involving large age differences were granted, according to Bearat's report. In one instance, a 71-year-old U.S. citizen petitioned for a 17-year-old spouse, she wrote.
A lack of USCIS guidelines largely leaves it up to the officer who receives the applications to decide whether to accept or reject it. While they may reject applicants involving younger children, others with less jarring age gaps may be approved because there is no federal law stating they cannot be granted, she said.
"It's not a difficult thing to be done. There was momentum at some point in late 2019 and early 2020 to change this, and it seemed to be a very nonpartisan issue. But it lost momentum," Bearat said.
Reiss said states should still take action, as the federal government does not appear likely to make changes to immigration law.
"States can either sit around and wait for the federal government to take action and keep the girls in the state vulnerable in this way to this type of trafficking, or they can do the right thing and make the marriage age 18," Reiss said.
Update 05/28/24, 9:52 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
Update 05/28/24, 10:46 a.m. ET: The headline was updated.
Update 06/03/24, 7:05 a.m. ET: This article was updated to reflect that ACLU declined to comment and Planned Parenthood were approached for additional comment.
