Remember the commonsense bill we at Unchained helped to write to end child marriage in New Jersey? The one that was THIS close to passing with overwhelming, bipartisan support?
Shockingly, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin pulled the bill off the assembly agenda at the last minute Thursday. He did so at the behest of Asm. Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), who suddenly decided ending a human-rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives might somehow offend the Orthodox Jewish community.
Oh, hell no. LET’S TAKE ACTION! Chain-In with us next Sunday, June 3, outside Schaer’s office. We’ll wear bridal gowns and chains to show him what life looks like for a girl who’s forced to marry.
If you’re in the New Jersey area, please also email Coughlin here to urge him to pass A865 as is, without any dangerous exceptions Schaer might propose.
New Jersey does not specify any minimum age for marriage, much like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Since 1995, more than 3,600 children as young as 13 were married here, and almost all were girls wed to adult men.
Some 95 percent of the children married were age 16 or 17 – but Schaer wants to weaken A865 to remove protections from 16- and 17-year-olds. He wants the state to end a human-rights abuse, just not for 95 percent of the people impacted by it.
If his idea sounds familiar, that’s because then-Gov. Christie – America’s most hated governor – came up with similarly evil nonsense last year, when he conditionally vetoed the same bill after it passed with solid support from both sides of the aisle.
Read more here about child marriage in New Jersey and across the U.S.
Unchained At Last is the only organization dedicated to helping women and girls in the U.S. to escape forced marriages. Unchained also is the only organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in America – and it currently leads a historic national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state.
