Child Marriage is Now Illegal in D.C.

By: Miriam Edelman

During this year’s Women’s History Month, child marriage in D.C. became history. This piece follows up on DCNOW’s blog’s piece, entitled “Child Marriage Prohibition Amendment Act of 2024.”

On March 21, 2025, the Child Marriage Prohibition Amendment Act of 2024 became law. It is now L25-0311. From now on, the marriage age in the nation’s capital is 18 years old. D.C. joins Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Washington, Virginia, New Hampshire, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands in ending child marriage.

As a result of the law, people will no longer suffer the detrimental consequences of child marriage. No one will undergo what Sara Tasneem did. As Tasneem testified to the D.C. Council:

-          “At fifteen years old I was forced to marry a stranger who was 13 years older than me. I was legally married to my rapist and abuser at the age of 16 and clearly pregnant — which was evidence of rape.”

-          “As a minor, I faced extreme and numerous barriers to being able to leave my abusive marriage.”

-          “Sadly, I am not the exception. It has taken me years to recognize and address the severe impacts child marriage has had on me, including PTSD from the prolonged abuse, recovering from the financial abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, the educational impacts of being taken out of school as a fifteen-year-old led directly to extreme poverty.”

Tasneem now advocates to end child marriage.

DCNOW’s President Rose Brunache said, “DCNOW celebrates this new law, which ends child marriage and its devastating effects. Due to the law, D.C. no longer is a destination for child marriages.”

Child marriage in D.C. is no more. This human rights abuse should be eliminated elsewhere.