Child marriage in the USA

[PricklyBall]

BBC piece

I've posted about this before on Mumsnet (outside of FWR I get greeted with cries of "no, that isn't true" - though the Washington Post, New York Times, Independent over here have carried articles on it in recent years). Just thought I'd start another thread, by way of a bit of consciousness raising (and also possibly raise the idea that the UK ought to be pressing for an end to marriage before the age of 18 too).

It is probably no surprise that the USA was one of the few countries not to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
States rights are a fundamental part of the constitution and were enshrined to protect the country from central government having over-weaning power but this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have pressure applied to change laws when they are outdated or in conflict with the fundamental human rights of the citizens in that state. I wonder why the rights of adults to marry a child is more important than the rights of those children? If these instances do happen so rarely and only in deviant cultures (definitely NOT pointing the finger at any group in particular) then surely amending the law so that these instances can be met with the full force of the law is not a big issue at all? Using the states rights argument appears
To me to go against the spirit in which they were established.

Child marriage is not a rare occurrence. It is happening all the time in the uk, except children are taken abroad for the purposes of it. It is most common in Muslim communities- we are not doing Muslim females any service by ignoring this. Political correctness leading to moral blindness.

If your freedom is at the expense of a vulnerable group then that is not freedom.

It is an appropriation of the word to conceal it being the assertion of privilege and authoritarianism. Just because it doesn't come directly from the state does not mean it is not authoritarian. It is the use of power over another from other sources.

It is post truth freedom.

Learn what fake liberalism is.

It is RIGHT to be intolerant and use the power of the state in some circumstances to prevent real abuses of power. Sadly America will find this out the hard way, I fear. The UK are in danger of doing the same.

Yes but if you alter the law, increase the age- girls are still being exported in the hundrends year on year from uk and also from USA with nothing being said or done, surely this needs to be addressed first. It's not a rare occurrence, it's happening all the time.

We saw this with the charlie gard case too, where many in the us couldn’t grasp the concept that charlie’s rights came before the parents.

Girls are being removed from education, taken abroad, forced to marry, raped and impregnated. It's happening all the time, children going missing from school in the uk.

Missymoo, the difference is that child marriage is illegal in the UK. The fact that it happens is appalling, but we haven't avoided legislating against it because some people will still do it. Please stop with the whataboutery, the two situations are not remotely similar.

I'm saying yes we have legislated against it, but it is still going on I'm drawing attention to it.
A major issue effecting girls in this country you pass off as "what aboutery"- amazing! Girls are being exported, but let's ignore it.

Legislation may lead to more girls being taken abroad where anything could happen to them, including murder

of course legislation should be there, but at same time this problem needs to be tackled or will just continue, perhaps increase

It is whataboutery because you've come on to a thread about one issue and made into one about another. In this country it is illegal for children to marry, in the US it isn't. If parents in this country want to marry their children off they have to take them elsewhere, possibly the US? In the US, if parents want to do the same they can just take them to a courthouse down the road. We can't affect legislation in other countries, but maybe by holding a mirror up to them we can shame them into changing it, and in the process protecting children here. Suggesting that the two societies are in anyway equivalent ignores the real issue, and also means we miss an opportunity to talk about where this is happening.

This article was on the bbc website yesterday and I shared it on Facebook where plenty of friends were astonished to find it’s true. It’s a horrific state of affairs in a supposedly civilised country. Tho I question that a lot as when gun laws were not changed after the Sandy Hook massacre it seemed America had decided that shooting children wasn’t worthy a law change....not a civilised society.

Why does the US have so many child brides?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41727495www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41727495

No not countries like USA- like Pakistan, where children from U.K. And US are taken to marry- it's happening all the time! We could do something about that but no one seems to talk about it

We know it’s happening, and there are safeguarding units dedicated to preventing it, and all forms of human trafficking.

In the US it’s fucking legal. Massive difference.

Precisely what could we do? They are sovereign states, we can't force them to change their laws. And maybe it would help if they couldn't point that the US, a western democracy, also has the same laws?

We have an ability to prosecute in this country. This is good. We should do more to pursue it. I'm not arguing with that.

Your argument is that to distract from the fact that there is LESS political will to protect children elsewhere. Not to draw attention to problems here.

Not only that, but what you are doing is putting the focus on Muslims, rather than the focus on the crime. There are plenty of Muslims who DO NOT do this yet are caught up in your criticism because you focus on the religion and not the problem. This is not an Islamic problem as such. It is a cultural one, which too often uses religion as the excuse.

Political correctness has failed in the same way: by not focusing on the crime and instead being worried about the causing a religious outcry.

You are not making the situation any better.

Focus on the REAL issue. That is, bad people use whatever means they can to justify or excuse themselves when they do bad things.

Yes there are safeguarding units- but it's largely unreported, it's a huge problem and mostly ignored. It's a fact girls are going missing from education going abroad and not being returned. People are largely turning a blind eye.

Missymoo I don't think there is an issue about 'political correctness leading to moral blindness'. It's illegal, and schools have a safeguarding duty to report if they suspect it's going to take place.

The problem is not one of 'political correctness', it's one of pragmatism: it's hard to spot and stop until it's too late. It's also a problem of cost: presently we have no government that is seriously putting money into addressing this. That's not because of 'political correctness', or a desire not to offend. Quite the opposite. Just as there is very little money for social services generally, there is very little money for this because not enough people care and not enough value is placed upon these lives.

It's not 'political correctness', it's a cynical reflection of lack of concern for the societally powerless.

Stop with this 'political correctness' nonsense. Think about what you're saying.

Just in case you can't work out what you're saying, I'l spell it out for you: you're saying that the vast majority of people working in education, social services and health care (the people most likely to get a chance to raise safeguarding concerns) in the UK are what RTB terms 'fake liberals' (great term, by the way, RTB), who place some weird cultural and individualist ideology above safety concerns for children.

You are saying that they knowingly let this practice continue and collude, in the interests of 'political correctness'.

Ask yourself: is this likely?

No. It isn't.

It helps absolutely no-one to give this the window-dressing of 'political correctness'. It is not premissed in some sort of unwillingness to offend. It is premissed in a structural cynicism. Calling it 'political correctness' tarnishes progressive ideologies and let's people get away with doing nothing.

Missymoo if you truly care about stopping kids being taken to a foreign country to marry, the first thing we need to do is stop spouses from pakistan, india, Bangladesh etc coming to the UK from these countries. The people coming over are obsessed with this notion of respect and then getting people from these poorer cointries here to work and help their family. Once we stop allowing spouses here, people will marry other integrated people abd the cycle will stop.

No you are deflecting from the real issue that girls, especially Muslim girls are going missing, forced into marriage and the system is failing them. People skirt round it because they are scared of causing offence. See this extract from karma nirvana website;

“The evidence is clear, as with past public inquiries such as Rotherham and others, that police and other professionals fear treading on cultural toes - the consequences for victims are devastating.” Jasvinder Sanghera CBE

Help us help your local Police Force better understand the issues and give them the confidence to stand firm. Recommend they take our #ForcedMarriage training course.

im not making the problem worse, I am highlighting that this is going on. People who say something are shut down.

@RTB - great post.

I can't see the US shifting on it any time soon, though. It seems to be a really fundamental bedrock of the way freedom is conceptualised at a legal level. Not surprising that the rights of girl children are at risk in that conceptualisation.

Btw, the poster who said that, with fundamentalist religions, it tended to be that both partners were young - a quick google suggests this to be untrue. I think the figures are something like 80+% girls, only 17% boys. It's mainly girls being married to older men. Which is not a great surprise.

I don't agree political correctness is the issue, after all much worse is often said about Muslims/asians etc its more indifference to the suffering of women and girls.

As for America, absolutely a law needs to be introduced. I wonder why it hasn't? The individuals may not have integrated into society but surely law makers know better

Advice please-
i do care very much about this issue. It's an area that's being neglected and I think could be the next scandal exposed.
i have done more to help than most people assume

I think you’re slightly misunderstand the US poster - I think their reference to “freedom” didn’t mean the freedom for paedophiles to marry their victims, but the freedom of the individual states to set laws on certain subjects. I think that in the UK we can’t really comprehend the importance of that subject to Americans.

However regardless of the politics of federal legislation there is absolutely nothing stopping people in each state from campaigning for a change in the law state by state. Virginia for example changed their laws to mirror English ones last year. US girls need a two-pronged approach - an attempt at federal lawmaking and state by state campaigns.