SAN JOSE — Gowned in white wedding dresses and veils — and with metal chains wrapped around their wrists — around 20 survivors of child marriage gathered outside Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s office Thursday morning to ask him to schedule a hearing date for a bill that would set the minimum marriage age to 18.
“Kalra, Kalra, be our friend! Bring child marriage to an end!” they chanted in between speeches. “Thirteen states but we won’t rest! California, you’re up next!”
Some women had black tape in an “X” over their mouths. Others held hands as survivors shared their own experiences of child marriage. All wore red placards reading, “Asm. Kalra: stop child marriage in CA!”
The protestors urged Kalra’s support for AB 2924, a bill put forward by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris in the state assembly earlier this year that would remove existing legal provisions allowing for marriage under the age of 18. The bill’s hearing in the judiciary committee was canceled at Petrie-Norris’s request in April, according to the legislative history.
The bill had 30 co-authors with bipartisan and bicameral support, Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained at Last, said at the protest. “It can almost certainly pass,” she added.
Kalra is the chair of the judiciary committee. Advocates say he has not set a hearing for the bill.
Kalra’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The protest was organized by Unchained at Last, a survivor-led nonprofit organization that provides direct services to those escaping child and forced marriage. The group also advocates for bills that would end child marriage in all 50 states.
Child marriage is a human rights abuse and a “nightmarish legal trap,” Unchained at Last said in a news release. More than 8,000 children are entered into marriage every year in California, according to the organization’s research.
“Child marriage is a human rights abuse that destroys almost every aspect of an American girl’s life – her health, her education, her economic opportunities, even her physical safety,” Reiss said. “But it is legal in California. Is that okay?”
Reiss, who is a survivor of forced marriage, explained that minors forced into marriages run into a host of legal challenges that make it difficult to leave. They often cannot access domestic violence shelters, retain the services of an attorney or take legal action, Reiss said. She added that statutory-rape laws do not apply when a couple is married.
As survivors shared their stories, many paused to hold back tears. Behind them, the crowd of women cheered support and greeted them with hugs upon finishing. They sometimes turned their faces upward, speaking directly to Kalra’s office.
Chavie Weisberger shared how she was forced into marriage and motherhood, having three children before she turned 24.
“(My children) won’t be forced into marriage because they have a parent who’s going to protect them from that,” Weisberger said. “Here in California, who is protecting children whose parents are not doing the right thing?”
Mandy Havlik, another survivor of child marriage, said she was forced to marry a week after she turned 17 because of her family’s religious beliefs. When she was able to leave her marriage at 20, she was excommunicated by her community.
“I never went to college. I never got that higher education. It destroyed my credit,” Havlik said. “It took me over a decade to rebuild my life. Ash Kalra — we need progress here.”
Marilyn Smith, who at age 16 was arranged to marry another 16-year-old, shared how she had no rights during her marriage.
“I didn’t know the trauma would follow me the rest of my life,” Smith said. People “should be allowed to make that life-altering decision as adults. Don’t take that away from them. Don’t cheat them out of that right.”
Jenn Bradbury was 16 years old when she was forced to marry a 44-year-old man and endure a marriage filled with abuse, she said.
“I will never be okay. My children will never be okay. That’s our reality,” Bradbury said, her voice breaking. “I just ask that we not do that anymore.”
Katherine Cleland, a representative from Zonta USA, a nonpartisan organization focused on improving conditions for women and girls, pointed out how the U.S. speaks of child marriage as a human rights abuse internationally but has not “done the work here at home.”
“We work worldwide to end child marriage,” Cleland said. “We came to the shameful realization eight years ago that we had a bigger problem in the United States.”
After the speeches, the survivors performed a poem and song based on the U.S. national anthem with altered lyrics and a mournful tune, then held a moment of silence for victims of child marriage. They then began to sing again as they marched away from Kalra’s office.
“Oh hey, do you think as the dusk turns to night of the children you exploit?” the women sang, hands chained as they walked away. “Oh say, can you see by the dawn’s early light the girls you have destroyed?”
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