🌅 Today’s stat: 60,000

SOURCE

Unchained At Last

WHAT TO KNOW

• Child marriage is legal in 37 U.S. states, with nearly 300,000 minors having been legally married nationwide from 2000 to 2018 (96% were age 16 or 17 at the time of marriage). Of the roughly 60,000 marriages that happened at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have constituted a sex crime under the relevant state’s laws, around 80% involved marriages in which sex between the parties became legal only upon issuance of the marriage certificate, and the other 20% involved marriages in which sex between the parties was still a crime after the parties were wed.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Girls are impacted by child marriage far more than boys: of the nearly 300,000 minors who wed from 2000 to 2018, 86% were girls and 78% of the marriages involved a minor girl marrying an adult man (age 18 or older). Among the minor girls who wed, their average spousal age difference was 4 years, more than double the 1.5-year average difference among minor boys who wed.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The U.N. considers child marriage (including at age 16 or 17) to be a human rights violation, with particularly devastating lifelong outcomes for girls. Research shows child marriage—which almost always ends in divorce—harms American girls’ health, significantly increases their likelihood of experiencing domestic violence, and destroys their educational and economic opportunities. Globally, it kills 60 girls each day.