LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – This week Governor Gretchen Whitmer officially signed a law making marriages between minors and adults illegal in the state of Michigan. 

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“Keeping Michiganders — especially young women — safe and healthy is a top priority, and these bills will take long overdue steps to protect individuals from abuse,” Whitmer said “As a county prosecutor, I went after those who used their power to prey on young people, and as governor, I am proud to sign legislation to sign these protections into law.”

Advocates like bill sponsor, Senator Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) reflected on the passage of the bill. 

“Since first introducing a bill to end child marriage in 2018, I have heard countless stories, particularly from our young girls, of abuse they have endured in marriages they could not by themselves legally consent to.” Anthony said on social media, “Protecting our children should always be a nonpartisan issue.” 

Michigan has become the 10th state to end child marriage, after Connecticut and Vermont according to the Tahirih Justice Center. 

“With these reforms, Michigan will advance from being one of the worst-offenders to a leader in the campaign to end child marriage. Michigan’s victory will also be an important marker for the national movement to end child marriage, with 1 in 5 states having now ended child marriage,” Public Policy Manager at the Tahirih Justice Center, Alex Goyette, said in a statement. 

Ahead of the House’s decision to pass the legislation through, a group, Unchained At Last, protested the state’s decision to continue allowing underage marriages in May. 

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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.”

In the past two decades, Michigan has had more than 5,000 minors take wedding vows. 

“Our research shows that 5,426 children, some as young as 14, were married in Michigan between 2000 and 2021,” Unchained at Last said in a statement, “Twelve of them were not even old enough to consent to sex.” 

The legislation would not alter Michigan’s age of consent laws, which mandate that individuals must be at least 16 before engaging in consensual sex with an adult.  Moreover, they would not invalidate marriages of underage people ahead of the law.