The Center for Inquiry (CFI) calls on its supporters in New Hampshire to help pass legislation to ban child marriage in the Granite State.
The General Court of New Hampshire (the state’s legislature) recently passed SB 359, which would raise the minimum age of marriage to eighteen years with no exceptions. It is now up to Governor Chris Sununu to sign this important bill.
CFI consistently supports bans on child marriage because the problem of child marriage is linked to the power of religious communities over the lives of children. In a typical scenario, a young girl is married to an older man who is a member of her family’s religious congregation or community. Nationally, approximately 86 percent of child marriages involve girls under the age of eighteen.
In total, a staggering 300,000 children were married in the United States between 2000 and 2018.
Child marriage has been shown to lead to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. It also leads to worse life outcomes, such as isolation, humiliation, lack of education, and loss of career opportunities.
In New Hampshire, current law allows anyone sixteen years of age and older to get married. As a result, 407 minors were married in the state between 1995 and 2021, with 80 percent of them being girls marrying men eighteen years or older.
If it were to enact SB 359, New Hampshire would become the thirteenth state to completely ban child marriage by raising the legal age of marriage to eighteen with no exceptions. New Hampshire would also be the third state to ban child marriage this year, joining Washington and Virginia.
The General Court of New Hampshire has done its part. Now it is up to Governor Sununu to sign SB 359 into law. Please contact the governor’s office today to urge him to ban child marriage in New Hampshire.
