Member-only story
The Laws that turbo-charge Child Rape and Underage Marriage… in America
In no less than 39 U.S. states, child-to-adult marriage is legal, too-common, and retroactively rewards “statutory rapists” with the child they have just defiled, with the parents’ blessing.
In today’s The Guardian, an article titled, “The end of women and children’s rights: outrage as Iraqi law allows child marriage”, describes despondent Iraqi citizens reacting to the repeal of a 1950’s-era law that had hitherto prohibited the practice, and that children “as young as nine” are being married off, as a result.
It immediately made me recall something my life partner [and serial defender of women’s rights] shared with me just this week: that child marriage remains legal in most of the United States, too.
My first reaction was, “no f-ing way!” But once I accepted that she was both right and informed, I decided to go down the rabbit hole myself, on the practice’s prevalence, limits, and impacts, so that I could write cogently about it in the hopes of creating more allies for those whose lives are shattered as a result.
