It’s not illegal to get pregnant as a teenager. But it is illegal in much of the world to get married below age 18, even with parental consent, and even if the bride and groom are over the age of consent to sex. Colombia has just banned 16 or 17-year-olds from marrying even when they have parental consent.
The Guardian reports:
Colombian lawmakers have approved a bill to eradicate child marriage in the South American country after 17 years of campaigning by advocacy groups and eight failed attempts to push legislation through the house and senate.
After five hours of heated, drawn-out debate on Wednesday evening, lawmakers approved the proposed legislation, dubbed They are Girls, Not Wives, which prohibits the marriage of anyone under the age of 18….
Colombia is now one of 12 countries out of the 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean to have entirely banned marriage under the age of 18, following Honduras, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
The legislation repeals a 137-year-old provision in Colombia’s civil code which let people under age 18 get married with their parents’ consent.
There are 4.5 million girls or women in Colombia who got married before 18 – about one in four. Of those, a million got married before they were 15, according to Unicef. (Getting married before age 15 seems like a bad idea, even with parental consent).
The age of consent to sex in Colombia is only 14, which is lower than in most of the world. So it is legal for 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 17-year-olds to have sex in Colombia, but not to get married.
Half of all families in the African nation of Sierra Leone include a mother who got married before age 18. But Sierra Leone outlawed such marriages in June.
In the United States, many states allow 16 or 17-year-olds to marry with parental consent or judicial approval, while many other states do not.
With parental consent, 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds can get married in Illinois, Hawaii, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, Montana, the Dakotas, Alaska, Idaho, and West Virginia. With judicial consent, 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds can get married in various other states. Emancipated minors who are 16 or 17 can get married in Texas. People under 18 cannot marry under any circumstance in the states of New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, New Hampshire, Washington State, Michigan and Vermont.
In December, another African country, Zambia, banned marriage below age 18. That was a big change, because 1.7 million of Zambia’s 20 million people were child brides, and 400,000 Zambians got married before age 15. Zambia is a landlocked, mostly rural country deep in south central Africa. Parliaments in several other African countries have also recently banned marriage below age 18.
The age of consent to sex in Zambia is 16, just as it is in many other countries. So 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds can have sex in Zambia, but they cannot get married.
Zambia is a signatory to international agreements banning marriage among minors — such as the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) that all categorically state the minimum age of marriage as 18, without any exceptions. At least six other nations in southern Africa also mandate a minimum age of 18 even when the bride and groom’s parents consent to the marriage, such as the most populous country in southern Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and in Mozambique, where the age of consent to sex is 16.
