California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states

ByRegan Morris Reporting fromLos Angeles.

Key points

• The new law, which will come into effect on 1 January, states individuals must be 18 to secure married in the Golden State.
• California has officially banned child marriage, with Governor Gavin Newsom signing legislation to end the practice that is still legal in 32 US states.
• Bee and other child marriage survivors have been working for years to have child marriages banned in California and throughout the United States.
• Stodden remarked she would "keep fighting until children are protected from marriage in all 50 states".
• "California has sent a clear message to the world today, " Brittany Bee, a former child bride, informed the BBC.

Meanwhile, the new law, which will come into effect on 1 January, states individuals must be 18 to secure married in the Golden State.

Newsom called it a "long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors". He signed the bill into law with Courtney Stodden whose parents allowed her to marry a 50-year-old Hollywood actor when she was just 16.

Stodden, who has been advocating to end the practice, called the change a "victory" and remarked survivors of child marriage should "never have been expected to carry this burden".

She was married to actor Doug Hutchison – known for roles in The Green Mile, A Time to Kill and I Am Sam – in 2011, spurring headlines internationally over the controversy and appearances on a number of reality programmes in the US, including the VH1 series Couples Therapy. Other survivors of child marriage additionally applauded the new law.

"California has sent a clear message to the world today, " Brittany Bee, a former child bride, informed the BBC. "A message of hope for all children that they may be free from systemic violence. That they may choose their own path."

Bee informed the BBC she was wed at the age of 17 to escape an abusive home – only to then be allegedly abused by her adult husband.

"I was just going from one prison to another, " she explained. "People have the audacity to tell me that I made a choice – kids, they can't consent."

Regarding a decade ago, the practice was still allowed throughout all US state but more and more states have been altering laws. California is the 18th to ban it since 2018.

In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to obtain married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.

There was additionally no mechanism for residents under 18 to obtain divorced and numerous girls say they were trapped in abusive and predatory relationships.

Unchained At Last, an advocacy group fighting to end child marriage throughout the US, stated regarding 9, 000 girls were wed each year in California and that almost all child marriages involved girls to adult men.

Advocates say that plenty of in the US don't even know that child marriage is legal in so numerous US states, nor that is has led to allegations of abuse.

Sara Tasneen, who notes she was forced to marry a man almost twice her age when she was 15 years old, informed the BBC that it felt "surreal" to finally have the state recognise that child marriage should be banned. She notes she kicked off lobbying for this herself in 2017.

She was introduced to her husband the morning of their arranged marriage.

"I was forced to be his wife and that day, my entire life changed, " she informed the BBC. She became a mother the after year, at the age of 16, and dropped out of school.

"To have seen the arc of this bill come to fruition has been a marathon, " Tasneen remarked. "I'm just grateful that kids cannot get married after January 1, 2027 in California."

Taken together, the developments around california bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.