I need the ERA because…a girl is not a wife – Child marriage

85% of UN Member States in the world have constitutions that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex and/or gender. The United States is not one of them.

It is estimated by Unchained at Last that about 300,000 children were married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, the majority of which were young girls married to adult men. Hundreds of thousands of American children were entered into matrimony because 37 states don’t have laws that prohibit marriage under the age of 18, without exception, and there is no federal law prohibiting it.

As part of our I Need the ERA because… campaign, launched to mark Women’s Equality Day 2022, we take a closer look at how the ERA would help move the needle on four crucial issues for women and girls, including child marriage.