Currently, children can marry as young as 16 in West Virginia with parental consent. It allows anyone younger than that to get married with a judge’s waiver.
In this photo provided by West Virginia Legislative Services, state Sen. Charles Trump stands in the Senate chambers in Charleston, W.Va., Friday, March 10, 2023. – A child marriage bill was passed by the West Virginia Senate on Friday night after it was changed to prohibit anyone younger than 16 from getting married and to ban age gaps of more than four years for 16- and 17-year-olds.
“I want us to pass something because our current situation is intolerable,” Morgan County Republican Sen. Charles Trump said. Although recent figures are unavailable, according to the Pew Research Center, West Virginia had the highest rate of child marriages among the states in 2014, when the state’s five-year average was 7.1 marriages for every 1,000 children ages 15 to 17.
Kanawha County Republican Sen. Mike Stuart said his mother was married at 16 and his parents are still together.A former federal prosecutor, Stuart added the bill wouldn’t be a cure to child sex exploitation in the state. He said that challenge would be helped through more education, funding, law enforcement and prosecutors.
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