Former Missouri child brides call for outlawing marriages of minors

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Adult women who left marriages they entered as children on Wednesday called on Missouri lawmakers to outlaw child marriage, a practice currently legal in most states.

Missouri lawmakers in 2018 prohibited marriages of children 15 and younger, only allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with parental permission. Most states have a similar policy, according to the nonprofit group Unchained At Last.

Those laws do not go far enough, said Unchained At Last founder and Executive Director Fraidy Reiss. She said 231 minors were married in Missouri between 2019 and 2021.

“Under the new law, almost all of them, like before, were girls wed to adult men,” Reiss said of the children recently married. “That is unacceptable.”

Bills pending this year in states including Missouri, California and South Carolina would prohibit underage marriages completely.

Efforts to ban child marriage altogether have failed before in states including South Dakota, California and West Virginia.

Supporters of child marriages say minors sometimes marry to escape the foster care system or to raise children as a wedded couple. Others have cited anecdotal cases of people in their communities marrying as children and enjoying the relationship.

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