They can’t drink, smoke or vote, but 16- and 17-year-olds can still get married in the District. New legislation introduced this month by D.C. Council members would ban that.
The new “Child Marriage Prohibition Amendment Act of 2024” bill, sponsored by nine council members, would close that loophole and raise the age one can get married to 18 years old, totally banning child marriage in the nation’s capital.
Currently, older teens can get married in D.C. with written or verbal consent from their parents or guardians.
While not common, the District has seen an increase in child marriages over the last few years, according to the D.C. Council. In 2020, just two children were married. Three years later, that number soared to 15 people under the age of 18.
D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto, one of the bill’s sponsors, argued in a letter introducing the legislation that the rise could be due to neighboring states banning marriages for people under 18 years old.
In 2022, Maryland barred marriage for people under 18 years old, except in rare circumstances where a 17-year-old would be allowed to get married with a judge’s consent. In Virginia, an outright ban on child marriage went into effect this year.
The Virginia-based Tahirih Justice Center, which has advocated for such legislation, stated that children who are married are 50% more likely to drop out of high school and around 30% more likely to face poverty in the future.
So far, 13 states, mostly in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, have banned child marriage.
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