The West Virginia House of Delegates handed a invoice Wednesday that will restrict minors from getting married.
The Republican-dominated House handed the invoice 84-13, sending it to the state Senate. The common consultation ends March 11.
Currently, youngsters can marry as younger as 16 in West Virginia with parental consent. Anyone more youthful than that still will have to get a pass judgement on’s waiver.
The invoice would determine that 18 is the age of consent. It gets rid of the power of a minor to procure consent via their folks, prison guardians, or by way of courtroom petition. Existing prison marriages, together with the ones finished in different states, are unaffected.
WEST VIRGINIA’S ‘RELIGIOUS FREEDOM’ BILL HEADS TO GOVERNOR’S DESK AFTER QUICK PASS THROUGH LEGISLATURE
A invoice that will ban marriage for any person more youthful than 18 was once handed by way of the West Virginia House.
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According to the nonprofit staff Unchained At Last, which seeks to finish compelled and kid marriage, seven states have set the minimal age for marriage at 18, all since 2018.
From 2015 to 2019, there have been marriages involving 259 women and 52 boys below age 18 in West Virginia. A couple of of them have been married greater than as soon as, in line with state well being statistics.
Although contemporary figures are unavailable, in line with the Pew Research Center, West Virginia had the perfect charge of kid marriages a number of the states in 2014, when its five-year moderate was once 7.1 marriages for each and every 1,000 youngsters ages 15 to 17.
Harrison County Republican Del. Keith Marple was once the lone speaker in opposition to the invoice Wednesday, pronouncing that he was once 18 when he was once married. He predicted that teenagers who need to get married will search a treatment out of state.
“The only thing it’s going to do is cause harm and trouble in young people’s lives,” Marple mentioned.
