LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The new legislative session has turned its attention to a new aspect of what constitutes marriage, and possibly raising the minimum age of requirement.
On Thursday, non profit group, Unchained at Last alongside several members of the legislature gathered at the capitol to protest child marriage according to the group.
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“Some 95 percent of the children wed were girls married to adult men an average of 4.3 years older — often with devastating, lifelong consequences for the girls,” the group said, “There’s a reason the U.S. State Department has called marriage before 18 a “human rights abuse.”
Senators Sarah Anthony and Sylvia Santana introduced legislation in mid March that, if passed, would raise the minimum age that people could legally be married without parental consent from 16 to 18 years of age.
The group recently highlighted some of its legislative victories in Vermont, which became the eighth state to end child marriage. Before the Vermont law was amended, “parents could enter 16- and 17-year-olds into marriage in Vermont without any input from the teen and without any legal recourse for a teen who did not want to marry.”
A study about the state of Vermont found that 298 minors were entered into marriage between 2000 and 2022, with 80% of participants were girls wed to adult men an average of 4.2 years older.
“Our research shows that 5,426 children, some as young as 14, were married in Michigan between 2000 and 2021,” the group said in a statement, “Twelve of them were not even old enough to consent to sex.”
The protest occurred several weeks after the Michigan Senate advanced legislation to repeal a ban on unmarried couples living together.
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According to the amended Senate Bill 56, the bill would remove the stipulation any “man or woman, not being married to each other, who lewdly and lasciviously associates and cohabits together, and any man or woman,” to instead state that any “individual, married or unmarried.
“Marriage before 18 can too easily be forced, because minors, even a day before their 18th birthday, have limited legal rights that make resisting or escaping an unwanted marriage nearly impossible,” Unchained at Last said in a statement, “Further, marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys American girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and greatly increases their risk of experiencing violence.”
The group has already gotten similar legislation passed in eight other states, some of which include: Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Delaware.
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