03-03-2022, 04:29 PM
By REBECCA BOONE
yesterday
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Ryan Small was trying to keep his ex-wife from moving out of state with their son early last winter when he found out the 16-year-old boy had been secretly married off to another teen, with his mother’s permission, in an apparent bid to end the custody battle.
A few months earlier, Erin Carver was embroiled in a battle with her ex-husband over whether their 16-year-old girl would remain in Idaho or move to Florida with her father when she learned a similar “sham marriage” had taken place.
The children both slipped through a common legal loophole in child marriage laws across the United States: It often only takes one parent to consent to let a 16- or 17-year-old child get married, and once that child is married custody agreements are moot.
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Unchained At Last, an organization that seeks to end forced and child marriages, estimates nearly 300,000 minors were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018.
......
Children are trafficked into marriages to foreign spouses to try to skirt immigration laws, rape victims are married to abusers in attempts to cover up the assaults
.......
“The problems with the current law are many, but they all come down to the fact that it’s a parent making this really important decision with no input from the minor, and the minor has no legal rights until they are 18,” Reiss said.
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-uni...148dee83bb
yesterday
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Ryan Small was trying to keep his ex-wife from moving out of state with their son early last winter when he found out the 16-year-old boy had been secretly married off to another teen, with his mother’s permission, in an apparent bid to end the custody battle.
A few months earlier, Erin Carver was embroiled in a battle with her ex-husband over whether their 16-year-old girl would remain in Idaho or move to Florida with her father when she learned a similar “sham marriage” had taken place.
The children both slipped through a common legal loophole in child marriage laws across the United States: It often only takes one parent to consent to let a 16- or 17-year-old child get married, and once that child is married custody agreements are moot.
......
Unchained At Last, an organization that seeks to end forced and child marriages, estimates nearly 300,000 minors were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018.
......
Children are trafficked into marriages to foreign spouses to try to skirt immigration laws, rape victims are married to abusers in attempts to cover up the assaults
.......
“The problems with the current law are many, but they all come down to the fact that it’s a parent making this really important decision with no input from the minor, and the minor has no legal rights until they are 18,” Reiss said.
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-uni...148dee83bb