Move FM Global News

CHARLESTON, West Virginia: After being amended to prohibit anyone younger than 16 years old from getting married, as well as banning age gaps of more than four years for 16 and 17-year-olds, a child marriage bill was passed by the West Virginia Senate on March 10th.

The bill was passed on a 31-1 vote and will be sent to the House of Delegates.

Children can marry as young as 16 in the state with parental consent, and even younger children can get married with a judge’s waiver.

“I want us to pass something because our current situation is intolerable,” said Morgan County Republican Sen. Charles Trump.

Under the bill, anyone younger than 16 years old can no longer be married, and those aged 16 and 17 would have to obtain parental consent and cannot marry someone more than four years older than themselves.

Existing legal marriages, including those performed in other states, would be unaffected by the new legislation.

Non-profit group Unchained At Last, which is working to end forced and child marriages, said that since 2018, seven US states have set the minimum age for marriage at 18 years old.

Most states allow 16 and 17-year-olds to marry with stated requirements, Trump noted.

“I know this has been a contentious issue among a number of people. My hope is this will be viewed as a reasonable and acceptable compromise and a necessary change to our law. It would bring West Virginia in line with the vast majority of states in the country,” he said.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2014 West Virginia had the highest rate of child marriages among the states, when its five-year average was 7.1 marriages for every 1,000 children aged 15 to 17 years old.