“I hope to see a day when survivors no longer have to relive their traumas to advocate an end to child marriage, because good people in this world have eliminated it.” So testified Aliya Abbas, a survivor of child marriage, before the DC City Council on October 21. The Council held a hearing on the Child Marriage Prohibition Amendment Act of 2024, legislation introduced by Councilmember Brooke Pinto (Ward 2) to finally ban child marriage in the District of Columbia. 

According to Councilmember Pinto, who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary & Public Safety, 15 minors were married in the District of Columbia in 2023, a dramatic increase from just one in 2022. Washington, DC is the only jurisdiction in the mid-Atlantic region that has not yet taken action to end child marriage. 

Alex Goyette, Public Policy Manager for the Tahirih Justice Center, said “eyes are shifting onto DC as the place where children can be brought” to escape protective child marriage laws in the other states, unless something is done. “Data from DC Health showed an uptick in the number of children marrying in DC in 2023 – the year after Maryland passed a law that limited child marriage, and which included a residency requirement. With DC’s neighbors passing legislation to limit and end child marriage within their own borders, this form of harm will increasingly be pushed onto the District’s doorstep,” he said.

A national problem, state and federal solutions

“Forced marriages can happen in America for many reasons. They can arise in families and communities where parents expect to control the marriage choices of their children, and where marrying young is the norm. Some individuals are pushed to marry to prevent or address sex or pregnancy outside of marriage, or as a cover-up for rape or sexual abuse. Sometimes, an abusive dating partner will threaten or coerce an individual into marriage. In other cases, sexual predators can target, ‘groom,’ and then pressure vulnerable girls to marry them, in order to further isolate and control them and to have round-the-clock access to them without fear of prosecution,” explained Goyette.

Multiple survivors of child marriage testified before the DC Council in favor of the law, alongside Dr. Indira Henard, Executive Director of the DC Rape Crisis Center and Lul Mohamud, Executive Director of The Person Center. There is also federal legislation pending in the United States Senate to enhance protections nationwide. 

Naila Amin is an activist and survivor who was instrumental in passing “Naila’s Law” in the state of New York, limiting the age of consent for marriage to 18. She is a firm advocate for enactment of federal protections as well. “There are a lot of laws in the United States named after children who have died because critical protections didn’t exist for them,” she wrote in Teen Vogue.

“But Naila’s Law in New York — which raised the age of consent to wed in the state to 18, effectively outlawing child marriage — is different. It’s named after a living victim: me, a survivor of the very thing the law now bans. As a mother of a daughter, I vow to protect her and all the other girls of this world to ensure that no child has to go through what I did, ever again.”

The federal Child Marriage Prevention Act, introduced by Senators Durbin (D-IL), Gillibrand (D-NY), and Schatz (D-MI), is pending in the Senate. Casey Carter Swegman, Director of Public Policy for the Tahirih Justice Center, wrote, “everyone should have the right to decide whether, when and whom to marry. The fact that children in so many states plus the District of Columbia, today, remain without this basic guarantee is a stain on our national conscience, but it’s a problem we can solve.”

Survivors speak

Testifying before the DC Council, Sara Tasneem said, “At fifteen years old I was forced to marry a stranger who was 13 years older than me. I was legally married to my rapist and abuser at the age of 16 and clearly pregnant — which was evidence of rape.”

“As a minor, I faced extreme and numerous barriers to being able to leave my abusive marriage. Sadly, I am not the exception. It has taken me years to recognize and address the severe impacts child marriage has had on me, including PTSD from the prolonged abuse, recovering from the financial abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, the educational impacts of being taken out of school as a fifteen-year-old led directly to extreme poverty,” she continued.

The message from the hearing was clear: the District of Columbia must act swiftly to avoid becoming a haven for child marriage.

Throughout the DC hearing, survivors recounted it had taken them years to recover from the pain, neglect, and trauma that marred their early years. They made it clear to members of the DC Council that it was in their hands to ensure no more children are harmed. 

After her father found out she was raped at the age of 13, Vilas Wright was forced to marry a man twice her age. “No one asked me,” she said. “No one stopped it. No one stood up and questioned if this was right or wrong. You have the power to do that today.” 

Vilas, who now lives in Maryland, described being treated “as a mere possession” by her family and legal husband, until being “tossed aside” and becoming homeless. “I never attended high school. I was not able to get a job because I had no training and was not old enough to be hired. I survived by trading my body for shelter and food. After all, it seemed to carry no other value. The consequences of the events of my childhood will remain with me for the duration of my lifetime.”

While testifying, Aliya described herself as a “survivor who had the courage to finally stand up for myself and for the sake of my children at any cost.” She also explained how being an advocate on such a personal issue is “not only emotionally and mentally traumatic, but has physical implications. I will spend this day writing the testimony along with the day when I have to orally testify in sorrow and unimaginable pain of having to relive the trauma in sharing my story, yet again, in hope of seeing a day when survivors no longer have to relive their traumas through advocating to end child marriage, because good people in this world would have worked together to eliminate it.”

The ball is in the DC Council — and U.S. Senate’s — court

The testimonies before DC Council remind lawmakers at all levels of government that it is their responsibility to listen to survivors and take meaningful steps to protect the nation’s children from harm. 

A vote on the DC legislation is expected in the coming months. The Senate legislation is gathering cosponsors and will most likely be reintroduced in the next Congress.

Read the Tahirih Justice Center report, “Child Marriage in Washington, DC,” and two-page issue brief about the DC legislation.