Findings

Congress finds the following: (1) Over 314,000 minors were married in the United States between 2000 and 2021. Most were wed to adult men and some were as young as 10 years of age, though most were 16 or 17 years of age. (2) Child marriage limits educational opportunities. Women who marry before they turn 19 years of age are 50 percent more likely to drop out of high school and 4 times less likely to graduate from college. (3) Girls who marry in their early teens are up to 31 percent more likely to live in future poverty. (4) Child marriage has harmful consequences for mental and physical health. Women who married as children have higher rates of certain psychiatric disorders. Another study found that women who marry before 19 years of age have a 23 percent greater risk of developing a serious health condition, including diabetes, cancer, heart attack, or stroke. (5) Child marriage can facilitate physical, emotional, and verbal abuse. Girls and young women 16 to 24 years of age experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence, and girls 16 to 19 years of age experience intimate partner violence victimization rates that are almost triple the national average. Further, the majority of States allow marriage to be used as a defense to statutory rape laws, which can incentivize perpetrators to marry victims to preempt prosecutions. (6) Seventy to 80 percent of marriages entered into when at least one person is under 18 years of age ultimately end in divorce. According to one study based on census data, 23 percent of children who marry are already separated or divorced by the time they turn 18 years of age. (7) Depending on the State, a child facing a forced marriage or a married minor trying to leave may find themselves with few options. A minor trying to avoid a forced marriage may not be able to leave home without being taken into custody and returned by police and may not be able to stay in a domestic violence shelter at all or in a youth shelter for longer than a few days. Friends or allies of a child escaping a marriage who offer to take them in could risk being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor or harboring a runaway. And, if the minor attempts to obtain a home of their own, they may find no one willing to rent to them, because in many circumstances, minors cannot be held to contracts they enter. (8) Depending on the State, a minor who is being forced or coerced into marriage may not be entitled to file on their own for a protective order. Further, not all States clearly treat married minors as emancipated, meaning they still have the limited legal status and rights of a child and face similar vulnerabilities and challenges seeking help. (9) Child marriage in the United States can also be facilitated through the immigration system. Subject to rare exceptions, United States law recognizes marriages as valid if they were legal where they took place. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported that between fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2017, it approved 8,686 petitions for spousal or fiancé visas that involved at least one minor, though it remains unclear how many of these visas were ultimately approved by the Department of State. However, approximately 2.6 percent of fiancé and spousal petitions were returned unapproved to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services between fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2017. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the United States issued a visa to a significant number of the spouses and fiancés named on the 8,686 petitions. (10) Four States and 2 territories set no statutory minimum age for marriage. In 10 States and 2 territories, clerks acting on their own—without judges—can issue marriage licenses for all minors. Four States and 1 territory permit pregnancy to lower the minimum marriage age and in 1 State, Mississippi, and 1 territory, Northern Mariana Islands, the statute sets different conditions for approvals for girls and boys. (11) There is a growing movement to eliminate child marriage in the United States and 17 States—Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Washington, Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Missouri—as well as Washington, DC, American Samoa, and the United States Virgin Islands, have set the minimum age for marriage at 18 years of age, with no exceptions. Since 2016, a total of 37 States, 3 territories, and Washington, DC have enacted new laws to end or limit child marriage with 5 more States requiring parties to be legal adults (meaning that the only exception to the requirement to be 18 years of age to be married is for certain court-emancipated minors). Until all States and territories take action, however, the patchwork of State laws will continue to put all children, particularly girls, at risk, given the ease with which they can be taken out of their home State or territory into another State or territory with lax or no laws. (12) The foreign policy of the United States is already imbued with these understandings that child marriage is harmful and should be prevented, including the following: (A) The Department of State in its Foreign Affairs Manual states the Federal Government view of forced marriage to be a violation of basic human rights. It also considers the forced marriage of a minor child to be a form of child abuse, since the child will presumably be subjected to non-consensual sex.. (B) The United States Agency for International Development has observed that Child, Early, and Forced Marriage (In this paragraph referred to as CEFM) impedes girls’ education and increases early pregnancy and the risk of maternal mortality, obstetric complications, gender-based violence, and HIV/AIDS. Children of young mothers have higher rates of infant mortality and malnutrition compared to children of mothers older than 18. … CEFM is also associated with reductions in economic productivity for individuals and nations at large. CEFM is a human rights abuse and a practice that undermines efforts to promote sustainable growth and development.. (C) Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (Public Law 113–4; 127 Stat. 54), which requires the Secretary of State to establish and implement a multiyear strategy— (i) to prevent child marriages; and (ii) to promote the empowerment of girls at risk of child marriage in developing countries.