We Condemn Child Marriage Abroad. It’s Time We End It At Home.

A judge signed a form, and a 16-year-old became a wife. This happened in the United States.

Emily stood in a courtroom beside her mother and a man more than ten years older while the word consent was spoken aloud, as if it meant something here. Emily’s mother was a single mother, and, presumably for financial reasons, had forced Emily to move in with the man at the age of 15. Emily’s religious community had then pressured her to marry him.

No one asked her if she was afraid. No one asked if she wanted to go back to school. No one asked what she would choose, if she were free to choose at all. The law did not require those questions.

With one signature, her childhood ended — not because she had grown up, but because the system said she had.

Weeks later, her life began to close in. Her friends drifted away. The man she had married became controlling, then violent. Because she was still legally considered a minor, she could not file for divorce. Or enter a women’s shelter. She could not sign a lease or hire a lawyer.

She had been made a wife in the eyes of the law. But she was still a child in every way that mattered. And the law offered her no way out.

Emily’s story profoundly affected me when I heard it at a Tahirih Justice Center gathering in 2021. Emily lives in my home state of California, where there is no legislation regarding minimum age for marriage.

I was shocked at how the marriage legitimized pedophilia, statutory rape, and even trafficking.

And I was appalled to know that in my state, girls are subject to such egregious human rights violations — and it is completely legal.

“Child marriage is something we condemn abroad. But no one talks about how often it happens at home.”

As Founder and Executive Chair of Global Girls Glow, and Board Chair of Every Woman, I have worked across continents to combat gender-based violence and expand girls’ agency and voice. Yet nothing prepared me for the realization that such a profound, exploitative, and completely preventable human rights violation is happening right here, in my own state.

Child marriage is something we condemn abroad. But no one talks about how often it happens at home.

Emily was right here in California. She could have been a classmate of my daughter. And she is just one of thousands of girls across the country whose childhoods have ended with the stroke of a pen.

Between 2000 and 2021, more than 314,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority — 86 percent — were girls, often married to adult men.

Some victims were as young as 10.

Today, only 16 states (and Washington, D.C.) have set 18 as the minimum age for marriage with no exceptions. In the rest of the country, a child can still be married with a parent’s signature, a judge’s approval, or both.

In the year 2026, why do these exceptions exist?

Those who oppose legislation offer familiar defenses: that marriage stabilizes teenage pregnancy; that parents — not the state — should decide; that a judge can protect a child in a brief hearing; that bans restrict a minor’s autonomy; that “Romeo and Juliet” romances deserve protection.

But these arguments rest on fiction, not reality. We know how that story ends.

“Today, only 16 states (and Washington, D.C.) have set 18 as the minimum age for marriage with no exceptions. In the rest of the country, a child can still be married with a parent’s signature, a judge’s approval, or both. In the year 2026, why do these exceptions exist?”

In my advocacy work, I’ve been continuously inspired by organizations like Equality Now, which works tirelessly to get legislation passed to eliminate child marriage. Their CEO (and an esteemed friend of mine) Mona Sinha refers to the practice as “the statutory rape exception” — a term that starkly captures how legal loopholes can be used to legitimize abuse.

I’m also moved by the work of Unchained at Last, which has spent years working directly with girls trying to escape these marriages. Their Founder, Fraidy Reiss, is a forced marriage survivor turned activist, who explains that once a child is married, the protections designed for minors like her often disappear. The legal system recognizes the marriage, but not the child’s ability to leave it.

The result is a devastating contradiction: Marriage transforms a child into an adult in responsibility, while keeping her a child in rights.

My heart breaks for girls around the world who are subjected to forced childhood marriage. It is an issue I’ve dedicated decades of my life to addressing worldwide. And today, I am more committed than ever to ending this practice in the U.S. once and for all. Because it is 100% preventable — if we act now.

This is not about culture “over there.” It is about power — here. It is about whether we are willing to confront what our laws permit, even when it challenges the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

The bottom line is: We cannot stand on global stages and denounce child marriage abroad while allowing it, in any form, within our own borders.

We cannot claim leadership on the rights of women and girls while leaving girls here without protection.

We must make 18 the legal minimum age for marriage — everywhere, in every state in the U.S.

Because if a girl is too young to vote, too young to sign a contract, and too young to enter most legal agreements, then she is too young to be married.

Kylie Schuyler is the Founder of Global Girls Glow, an organization that has connected over 100,000 girls worldwide with life-changing mentorship and the courage to lead. She also serves as Board Chair of Every Woman, a global movement working to end violence against women and girls. At the center of this work is Kylie’s simple, lifelong belief: When girls and women are supported to rise, entire communities rise with them.