No, you’re not imagining it. You have been seeing Unchained At Last everywhere you look.
One of the tactics we at Unchained use, as we lead the growing national movement to end child marriage in America, is educating the public through news media. And we’ve seen some major successes recently on that front, in television, radio, print and online outlets.
Did you catch our video op-ed on NowThis? Our live interview on CBSN? Our video on Condé Nast’s Iris? Our op-ed article in The Hill? Those were some of our favorites.
We hope to see you soon at:
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Marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states; laws in 24 states do not specify any minimum age for marriage. Our groundbreaking research showed that an estimated quarter-million children, at least as young as 12, were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010.
Children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage before they turn 18, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, enter a domestic-violence shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action in their own name. The girls who reach out to us for help often end up trying to kill themselves when they learn of their limited options. Further, marriage before 18 destroys girls’ lives, devastating their health, education and economic opportunities and increasing their risk of being beaten by their spouse.
Our advocacy work is making an impact. In just the last few weeks, legislators in Louisiana and Delaware introduced strong legislation to end all child marriage, without exceptions. The bills we helped to write to end all child marriage in New Jersey and Pennsylvania continue to gain support. Legislation to limit child marriage is pending in many other states, and recently passed in a few.
But so far no state has ended all child marriage. In state after state, legislators have defeated, ignored or watered down the bills we’ve helped to write and promote to eliminate the loopholes that allow marriage before 18.
Here‘s what you can do to help change that.
