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Minimum marriage age to be raised from 16 to 18 in England and Wales
The new law will see adults who arrange child marriages face up to seven years in prison
The minimum marriage age in England and Wales is to be raised from sixteen to eighteen under a new law hoping to prevent illegal child marriages.
While sixteen and seventeen year olds can currently marry with parental consent, campaigners have been warning that this legal loophole has been exploited and used to coerce some young people into child marriage.
The new law, proposed by Conservative MP Pauline Latham and first introduced in June last year, could see adults who arrange the marriage of children face up to to seven years in prison and receive a fine.
Latham said the legislation will also apply to cultural or religious marriages that are not registered with the local council, and will ‘transform the life chances of many girls’.
The legislation, which had its third reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday, will receive Royal Assent later this week, meaning it will become law from then.
The move has been praised by anti-child marriage campaigner Payzee Malika, who was coerced into marriage at the age of sixteen. Her sister Banaz was also murdered in a so-called ‘honour killing’.
She tweeted yesterday: “On my way to Parliament for The Third and Final reading of our Child Marriage Bill… Struggling to put in to words what this means.
“I feel so many emotions. This is real life change. This is for me, for Banaz, for any child impacted by child marriage.”
In a separate tweet, Payzee tweeted: “I’m just a girl from Kurdistan. I couldn’t imagine in a million years I would be working to end child marriage, sitting in Parliament hearing an incredible woman talking about the need to end child marriage.
“I will keep saying it, this is life saving. This is change.”
Figures released by the ONS last year show that 140 teenage girls and 43 teenage boys were married with parental consent in 2017.
Last year, Health Secretary Sajid Javid drafted a bill to end the rule that allowed sixteen and seventeen year olds to marry with their parents’ permission, arguing that research showed most of these unions were ‘coerced or forced for cultural and religious reasons’.