The New Jersey assembly judiciary committee today approved A3091, the bill Unchained wrote to end child marriage, by a vote of 5 to 1. The vote of approval came after Unchained’s executive director, Fraidy Reiss, testified before the panel and answered several questions from committee members.
Asw. Nancy Munoz, the bill’s sponsor, also testified in support of the bill, as did Nicole Morella, policy and advocacy director for the New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence; Abed Awad, a matrimonial lawyer and an expert on Islamic and Jewish law; and Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women – New York City.
No one testified against the bill, a simple piece of legislation that would eliminate dangerous exceptions to the current minimum marriage age of 18 and would reserve marriage, a serious legal contract, for those who have reached the age of majority. Thus the bill would eliminate child marriage, which is a human-rights abuse. Click here to read more.
Next the bill heads to the full assembly for a vote. An identical version of the bill also was introduced last week in the senate.
