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America's Child Brides

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BBC Radio 4 - America's Child Brides

The tense argument on child marriage in the USA.

In America children can get married legally in almost every state. Jane O'Brien has been investigating why and how this happens and talks to the people trying to stop it.

A tense debate is taking place in states across America. At what age should someone be allowed to marry? Currently in 48 out of 50 states a child can marry, usually with parental consent or a judge's discretion. In 17 states there's no minimum age meaning in theory a two year old could marry. But there's a campaign to change the law and raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 without exceptions across all American states. But changing the laws state by state is not as easy as one may think. There's resistance and raising the minimum age to 18 has often been blocked by legislators.     

Jane O'Brien speaks to child brides, the campaigners pushing to make it illegal and the people who say that the laws don't need to change. 

Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Amanda Hancox

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