Marrying someone wasn’t always something that I wanted to do. Sure, like any child, I dreamed of the whole husband, kids, and white picket fence sort of thing. But as I grew older, I vacillated between marrying my high school sweetheart and staying single as a form of freedom and feminism. After all, though married men are healthier and live longer than single men, the opposite is true for married women—and married women acquire an extra two weeks a year, on average, when they get married simply picking up after their husbands.

Yeah, that’s not fun.

I did end up getting married though, and it is largely an equal relationship in many ways. However, I am lucky in that I did get to make the choice on my own—and I was able to wait until I was old enough and ready to make such a big decision, you know, after I’d hit puberty already and whatnot.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for millions of girls worldwide. In fact, there are over 60 million girls who have been forced into marriage living right now. Can you imagine being forced to marry someone against your will because you are considered a “burden” on your family?

These marriage “deals” are what we would consider child rape in America (think Roman Polanski, only legal). A ten year old may be married to a thirty or forty-year-old perfectly legally; in fact, this is done very often. The girl’s family is usually under the assumption that the “connection” will make them wealthier, give them more power or status, or simply provide them with dowry money that they need due to extreme poverty.  

These poor girls, known as child brides, are typically trapped into a life of poverty by their marriage and lack of education. 25,000 child brides are forced into marriage every day—a situation in which they have no voice, no status in their new family, nothing; only the bed of a man three or more times their age to share, and children to produce for him much sooner than their bodies are ready to do.

Please ask your representative to co-sponsor the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act. This bipartisan piece of legislation would deem child marriage a violation of human rights rather than a standard practice, making it condemnable under law—as well as its practice, a violation of law, outlawed and enforced.