Maine becomes 14th US state to ban child marriage!
In a major campaign win, the US state of Maine just passed legislation to ban marriage for those under 18 years of age, reports WGAN. The new legislation closes a dangerous legal loophole that allows parents or a judge to push 17-year-olds into child marriage with no requirement for consent.
Marriage before 18 is “human rights abuse”
In 2020, Maine raised the legal age for marriage to 16. Prior to that, the law in Maine allowed a parent to marry off their child at any age. Three years later, the law raised the age to 17. But to anti-child marriage advocates, the law still didn’t go far enough. Research by advocacy group Unchained at Last found that some 1,174 minors were wed in Maine between 2000 and 2023. Concerningly, 77% of the minors were girls who were wed to adult men who were, on average, 3.7 years older.
An Unchained at Last statement highlights,
“Child marriage creates a nightmarish legal trap that destroys nearly every aspect of an American girl’s life. There’s a reason the U.S. State Department has called marriage before 18 a “human rights abuse.”
Before the 2023 legislation passed, 79% of the minors married in Maine were aged 17. Even worse, before the 2020 change, 100% of the minors who married were between 16 and 17. Representative Laura Supica sponsored the new bill, which finally banned all child marriage. In a committee testimony, she underlined that 17-year-olds are not equipped to navigate the legal system. Supica also pointed out that “those who marry at 17 years old also (have) high rates of divorce.”