California is one of four states that does not set a minimum age requirement for marriage.
Instead, a minor only needs to obtain permission from a parent or guardian and approval from a judge to obtain a marriage license, a concept that has generated some controversy.
New Mexico, Oklahoma and Mississippi are the only other states that allow people of any age to marry with the permission of a judge and one of their parents, but the Golden State is the first to resist it.
AB 2924, which would remove existing legal language allowing provisions for marriage between minors under the age of 18, was introduced in the local legislature in February.
However, it has already encountered resistance from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Northern California, ACLU California Action and the National Juvenile Law Center.
Child marriage survivors like Sara Tasneem, 43, are fighting to change an old law in California
Others who have suffered similar experiences have turned out in droves to protest child marriage and to defend AB 2924, which would remove existing legal language allowing provisions for unions of minors under the age of 18. Protesters are seen outside the offices of city officials in San Jose on July 18.
The coalition argues that such a move would drive abusive relationships underground and limit the rights of minors who wish to marry voluntarily, a stance that horrifies child marriage survivors like Sara Tasneem.
“At 15, my father forced me to marry a man who was a complete stranger and almost twice my age,” the El Sobrante resident, now 43, writes on her website.
‘It took me seven years to leave this abusive marriage behind.
‘I am fighting to change the laws that allow child marriage in the United States alongside other survivors who know all too well about the human rights abuses that forced child marriage entails.’
In an interview with Mercury NewsShe recalled how she was trapped in the archaic arranged marriage until she was 23.
During that time, she had two adult children, and was finally able to initiate divorce proceedings towards the end.
To achieve this, she was forced to leave her children with their father for a while, she said, describing how she decided on her next steps.
She was soon able to recover them and now uses her experience to help other people who have suffered and are suffering from similar situations to take her side.
Child marriage survivors are seen protesting with a ‘chain’, used to represent how children are essentially being imprisoned with these unions, they say.
“(A child marrying an adult) in itself is abusive because one person has power over another,” Tasneem told The Mercury News on Monday, days after the display.
“(A child marrying an adult) in itself is abusive because one person has power over another,” she told the Bay Area newspaper on Monday.
She explained how she had already testified about her experience with child marriage in Sacramento in support of AB 2924 earlier this year, and what she sees as the biggest obstacle in her quest so far.
“To me, it’s Planned Parenthood that’s standing in the way,” she said. “I just don’t get it. We should actually be on the same side in this situation.”
Pointing out the irony of such an institution opposing guidance designed to protect, in most cases, young mothers.
Tasneem described how she is one of several advocates who have met with Planned Parenthood multiple times about the bill, which was introduced by Orange County Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris.
The group, along with the local ACLU chapter and the National Juvenile Law Center, have refused to back down, he said.
“It seems like they’ve been a bit stuck in their ways and have turned this into a more political issue rather than seeing it as a real problem affecting children,” she said.
Her refusal prompted Petrie-Norris, a Democrat, to cancel a judiciary committee designed to pass AB 2924.
Tasneem described how she is one of several advocates who have met with Planned Parenthood multiple times about the bill, which was introduced by Orange County Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (see here).
The bill was withdrawn at the time, a fact that many at the time attributed to Assembly member Ash Kalra, chairman of the judiciary committee, due to his support for several amendments that survivors like Tasneem disagree with.
Those measures include a ban on marriage for anyone under 16 but allow the court to make certain exceptions for some 16- and 17-year-olds and emancipated minors, Petrie-Norris said — prospects that horrify Tasneem and stopped Petrie-Norris in her tracks.
“I have enormous respect for the lived experience of the survivors and advocates I worked with on this bill,” she said at the time, explaining that she decided to pause the bill because the survivors she was working with were convinced there should be no exceptions.
‘After considering our options for this legislative session, I decided to pause the bill rather than move forward with a compromise proposal that they do not support.’
The bill apparently died there, but Tasneem and other survivors continue to fight back with protests at the state Capitol.
Tasneem said new legislation could also soon be passed that, like Petrie-Norris, would completely remove the ability of minors to marry and set the minimum age at 18 with no exceptions.
Only 13 states, including New York, Pennsylvania and all of New England, have passed such provisions. All other states have a minimum marriage age of 16 or 17, and Hawaii and Kansas have an especially low limit of 15.
Meanwhile, the criticized bill was apparently popular, with 20 co-authors from different parties and chambers, after work began on it in 2021, he said.
The bill was withdrawn in April, a move many at the time attributed to Assembly member Ash Kalra, due to his support for several amendments that survivors like Tasneem disagree with, such as banning marriage for those under 16 but allowing the court to make certain exceptions.
“I want to protect the people who have the smallest voice in this process, and those are the least,” Tasneem said as she continues to fight for new legislation to stop these unions. She plans to continue these protests at the state capitol in Sacramento, in hopes that someone will one day introduce a similar bill.
Meanwhile, the federal government has signed a United Nations commitment to end child marriage by 2030, but states have been slow to produce bills like those seen in the Northeast and Washington state, which have made 18 the mandatory age.
A 2021 study by Unchained at Last, a nonprofit campaigning to end early marriages, suggested the problem is significant, with about 300,000 minors legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2018.
Many of them were from California, and more than 8,000 California minors between the ages of 15 and 17 were married in 2021, Unchained at Last found by examining the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey.
By 2022, that number had risen to more than 9,000, Unchained at Last said, adding that about 86 percent of these marriages involved underage girls marrying adult men.
In defiance, survivors and Unchained at Last staged a “chained” protest outside Kalra’s San Jose office on July 18, in which women donned wedding dresses with chains around their wrists, to symbolize the prisons they say these marriages create.
“I want to protect the people who have the smallest voice in this process, namely the minors,” Tasneem said days later. “No one is looking out for them: not their parents, not the law, not the lawyers, not the politicians. No one.”
She plans to continue such protests at the state capitol in Sacramento, in hopes that someone will one day introduce a similar bill.