Child Marriage in the United States: Prevalence and Implications

While American foreign policy deems child marriage a “human rights abuse” and calls on other countries to eliminate it [1U. S. State DepartmentUnited States strategy to empower adolescent girls. https: //2009-2017. state. gov/documents/organization/254904. pdfDate: 2016Date accessed: August 19, 2021Google Scholar], many Americans remain unaware of the prevalence of child marriage in their own country [2Lawson D. W. Lynes R. Morris A. Schaffnit S. B. What does the American public know about child marriage? . PLoS One. 2020; 15: e0238346Crossref PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar]. One possible explanation for this lack of awareness is that previous studies of American child marriage have been stymied by inadequate recordkeeping. The present study was the first to use various estimation methods to fill the data gaps. We found that nearly 300, 000 children married in the United States (U. S. ) between 2000 and 2018. No central repository in the U. S. collects marriage-age data from all 50 states. Retrieving marriage-certificate data from each state individually and compiling the results is the best alternative, but not all states systematically track or make available these data. In 2017, I published Unchained At Last's findings on the number of children married in the U. S. between 2000 and 2010, calculated from 38 states' marriage-certificate data plus estimates for the other 12 states based solely on the correlation between each of the 38 states' population and number of children married [3Reiss F. Why can 12-year-olds still get married in the United States? Washington Post. https: //www. washingtonpost. com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/why-does-the-united-states-still-let-12-year-old-girls-get-marriedDate: 2020Date accessed: August 19, 2021Google Scholar]. The Public Broadcasting Service's Frontline later expanded on this study, adding data through 2015 and for a few more states, but did not fill in the gaps left by missing or partial state data [4Tsui A. Nolan D. Amico C. Child marriage in America: By the numbers. PBS Frontline. http: //apps. frontline. org/child-marriage-by-the-numbersDate: 2017Date accessed: August 19, 2021Google Scholar]. For our latest study, Unchained partnered with Quest Research 47: 689-718Crossref PubMed Scopus (75) Google Scholar], and they are at greater risk of psychiatric disorders [15Le Strat Y. Dubertret C. Le Foll B. Child marriage in the United States and its association with mental health in women. Pediatrics. 2011; 128: 524-530Crossref PubMed Scopus (83) Google Scholar]. Child marriage also undermines statutory rape laws. A forthcoming study using our data set shows at least 34, 943–40, 224 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have constituted a sex crime under the relevant state's law [16Koski A, Van Roost K, Horn M. Child marriage or statutory rape? J Adolesc Health. doi: 10. 1016/j. jadohealth. 2021. 10. 023. Google Scholar]. In about 80% of those marriages, sex between the parties became legal with the issuance of the marriage license under state law that specifically allowed sex within marriage what would otherwise be considered statutory rape. Each of those marriage licenses became a “get out of jail free” card. In the other 20% of those cases, the marriage was legal under state law, but sex within the marriage was a crime. With each of those marriage licenses, the state sent a child home to be raped. These numbers, too, are almost certainly an undercount, because many states did not provide enough data for the analysis. California, for example, did not provide any marriage-age data and therefore was excluded from the analysis, but 100% of the 23, 588 children we estimated were married there between 2000 and 2018 could have been included. Sex with anyone younger than 18 years is considered rape in California unless the perpetrator first marries the child [17California Penal Code § 261. 5. https: //leginfo. legislature. ca. gov/faces/codesdisplaySection. xhtml? lawCode=PEN§ionNum=261. 5Date accessed: February 28, 2021Google Scholar]. The world cannot keep its promise to end child marriage by year 2030 [18United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5. 3: Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation. https: //sdgs. un. org/goals/goal5Date accessed: August 19, 2021Google Scholar] if we continue to ignore the hundreds of thousands of children marrying in the U. S. Every U. S. state and territory must pass legislation to do what we demand from the rest of the world: End child marriage. Partners for this study included Quest Research & Investigations, Kroll, Quantitative Analysis, and McGill University.