2024 should have been the year that the child marriage age was raised to 18 in California, but it didn't happen. Davinder attended two chain-ins organized by Unchained At Last, the only organization in the USA that supports victims of child marriage and forced marriage. We were getting so close to having legislation pass to raise the marriage age with AB 2924. However Assemblymember Ash Kalra demanded amendments and did not give the legislation a hearing in the Judiciary Committee he chairs. Shame on him! Child marriage is a human rights abuse. Kids should not be getting married!
We need to raise the marriage age to 18 in California with #noexceptions. We don't need organizations like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU interfering with the legislation every time it comes up in California and gets close to being passed. How dare they say that girls have the right to get married whenever they choose and think it's okay for a 16 year old to get married or it's infringing on her civil rights! Come off it, this is a child you are talking about, let kids be kids - not brides or grooms. They are too young to be wed, and it's a ridiculous argument to say that they have the right to choose to be married at that age! Do kids have a right to buy alcohol, buy drugs, or cigarettes or to vote? No! So, why should they have the right to be married? Kids need nurturing and guiding and are too young at that age to know what they want or to take that big step of marriage. Even when we are adults, we realize that we may have got married way too soon whether we marry at 18, 21, or even 25! I was forced into marriage when I was 14 even though it didn't happen until I was 18. It had elements of child marriage, as no child should be engaged at 14. I should never have been put into that situation. If you ask me, I would even go so far as to say no one should be married at 18, it's still way too young. We should be raising the marriage age to 21, let alone 18. However, it is still better to raise the marriage age to 18 rather than have no minimum marriage age. Girls can be married here in California at 12 or some other ludicrous age as long as the parents consent and a judge sees the parents signature on the marriage papers. It's the parents who are part of the problem - they are the ones who want the marriage, not the kids in most cases. Therefore, judges are complicit in the abuse of the kids who are getting married at such young ages when they don't even question why the parents would want to agree to marrying their kids off at such early ages. Which parents would want to agree to that?
When we can allow kids to get married before 18 but not to get divorced until 18, we need to question does that even make sense? When we can allow kids to get married before 18 and know that they can get pregnant when they are still a kid themselves and are at risk of carrying a baby because their body is not ready for childbirth and could put them and their unborn baby at risk, does that make sense? These are the questions we need to ask and when Planned Parenthood interferes and says that by raising the marriage age to 18, the kids might not have access to abortions - this does not even make sense. Raising the marriage age has nothing to do with the right to abortion - it was never written into the legislation that we are asking for those rights to be infringed on. These two organizations - ACLU and Planned Parenthood have not interfered in any other states that we know of, but they seem to interfere time and time again in California and we have to ask ourselves why are they getting away with interfering? Why are the lawmakers pandering to them? Why is legislation being held up because of these two interfering organizations and why did Ash Kalra listen to them?
Anyway, to get back to the reason for my posting this blog, it really was to share pictures of the chain-in protest that took place in San Jose on July 18, 2024 right infront of Ash Kalra's office. We were hoping he would show up, but of course he didn't. Shame on him for interfering with our noble intent of protecting children and raising the marriage age to 18. Until this is done, we are not doing our best. Until all the states have raised the marriage age to 18, we cannot rest. 13 states have now raised the marriage age to 18, but California is not one of them. #13Down37ToGo !
The states that have now raised the marriage age to 18 are: NJ, DE, MN, PA, RI, NY, MA, VT, CT, MI, WA, VA and NH
