In a significant move to protect minors and align with neighboring states, the D.C. Council held a legislative hearing Monday on the Child Marriage Prohibition Amendment Act of 2024.

The proposed legislation, introduced by Ward 2 Council member Brooke Pinto, aims to address the alarming reality that, unlike its mid-Atlantic counterparts, child marriage is still legal in D.C.

“The 2016 reform in Virginia that limited child marriage led to an uptick in Virginia resident minors being married in Maryland the next year before they passed their reform. And so as we see other states who have ended child marriage — Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, all the way up and down, I-95 — eyes are going to be shifting more and more onto D.C. as the place where these minors can be brought for marriage unless we do something about it,” said Alex Goyette, an expert on child marriage legislation, during the meeting.

“I think that speaks to the time-sensitive nature of getting this protection passed as soon as we can,” Pinto said.

The hearing featured testimonies from a diverse array of survivors of child marriage and experts from renowned organizations, including the Tahirih Justice Center, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center and the Person Center.

“Right now, the federal government does not set any minimum age to petition for a foreign spouse, fiance, to be the beneficiary of a spousal or fiance visa,” said Lul Mohamud, the executive director of the Person Center.

“Instead, it refers to state law, and that means that right here in D.C., right now, a girl aged 16 or 17 can legally be trafficked for her citizenship, forced to marry an adult man overseas so that he can get a visa and a path to citizenship,” she added.

She also shared her personal experiences, shedding light on the profound impacts of child marriage.

“The sad truth is that when someone is forced to marry, their own parent almost always plays a crucial role in facilitating it. We have worked with girls who showed up sobbing at the clerk’s office, begging for help. In that scenario, there is nothing the girl can do, nothing the clerk or anyone else can do. The parent signs the form and that child is married off,” Mohamud said.