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Help Reduce Harmful Child Marriages Worldwide
The Child Marriage Bills (H.R. 3175 and S. 1998) in order to help reduce child marriages around the globe. Child marriage is a harmful traditional practice that involves the wedding of children, almost exclusively girls, to usually significantly older men.
This practice affect girls as young as 7 years old and puts them at risk for damaging health, economic, and educational consequences. The proposed legislation would help alleviate these injustices by providing funds to relief programs that work to reduce child marriages. If you share our concern about the health and well-being of girls and young women globally, help us give a voice to those who cannot speak out for themselves.
Action Needed:
Please write to your senators and representatives today and ask them to sponsor the Child Marriage Bills!
Background:
According to the Population Council, about one in seven girls in the developing world (excluding China) marries before her 15th birthday. This practice, affecting girls as young as 7, puts them at risk to suffer damaging health, economic, and educational consequences.
The proportion of females wedded before the age of 15 in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh is 36 percent, in Bangladesh 37 percent, in Northwest Nigeria 48 percent, and in the Amhara region of Ethiopia 50 percent. Child marriage is also a serious problem in Uganda and Afghanistan, where often girls are forced to marry older men in order to cover their fathers' debts.
Child marriage can have many detrimental affects on a young girl's life. Once wed, these girls are pressured to have children rapidly, often before their bodies are prepared to handle childbirth. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Child brides also face a higher risk of contracting HIV, dropping out of school, and living the remainder of their lives in poverty.
The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act was introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and 41 co-sponsors in July 2007. Despite its referral to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the legislation has received little attention from committee members.
H.R. 3175 would provide the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with $100 million for the next four years so that child marriage reduction can be integrated into preexisting development programs and annual Department of State country reports on human rights practices. On the senate side, the International Child Marriage Prevention and Protection Act of 2007, introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and 12 co-sponsors, has similar provisions and a $60 million set aside for needed USAID activities.
In order to alleviate the injustices faced by young victims of child marriage around the world, please use our automated system to contact the members of your Congressional delegation and urge them to take leadership on this important issue. Putting the spotlight on child marriages will help to motivate committee members to take up these bills. Please use our formatted message or write your own. Make child marriage a thing of the past today.
Take Action NOW - when you are done sending a message to your senators, our system will prompt you to send a letter to your representative.
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