Acting Governor Susan Bysiewicz signed a bill that we tirelessly promoted for more than six years to make the marriage age in Connecticut 18, no exceptions.
Connecticut is now the ninth U.S. state where we have helped to end child marriage — a stunning victory for the nearly 6.5 million girls who live in those states! Only 41 states to go.
Previously, dangerous legal loopholes allowed parents to enter 16- and 17-year-olds into marriage in Connecticut with no real legal recourse for a minor who was forced to marry. Emancipated 16- and 17-year-olds could also marry. Marriage before age 18 creates a nightmarish legal trap: Even the most mature minor faces overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to resist or escape a forced marriage. Further, marriage before 18 is recognized as a human rights abuse that destroys almost every aspect of an American girl’s life.
Our research found that more than 1,250 minors, some as young as 14, were married in Connecticut between 2000 and 2021. Most were girls wed to adult men.
NATIONAL MOVEMENT
Connecticut now joins most of its neighbors in the northeast in eliminating marriage before 18, no exceptions: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as Minnesota, have all ended child marriage.
