California has officially banned child marriage after Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation requiring anyone getting married in the state to be at least 18 years old.
The new law will take effect on January 1, 2027, making California the 18th US state to ban child marriage since 2018. Child marriage remains legal in 32 other states under varying conditions.
Newsom described the legislation as a “long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors”. He signed the bill alongside Courtney Stodden, who was allowed by her parents to marry 50-year-old actor Doug Hutchison when she was 16.
Stodden, who has campaigned against child marriage, welcomed the legislation and said survivors should never have been expected to carry the burden of experiences they went through as children.
“I’ll keep fighting until children are protected from marriage in all 50 states,” she said.
Other survivors and campaigners also welcomed the change. Brittany Bee, who was married at 17 after leaving an abusive home, told the BBC that California had sent “a clear message to the world” that children should be able to choose their own paths.
Bee said she was later allegedly abused by her adult husband, describing her experience as going “from one prison to another”.
Under California’s previous law, there was no fixed minimum age for marriage. Minors could marry with parental consent and approval from a judge.
Campaigners said the previous system also left under-18s without a clear legal mechanism to divorce, potentially trapping some in abusive relationships.
Advocacy group Unchained At Last estimates that around 9,000 girls were married each year in California, with the vast majority of child marriages involving girls and adult men.
California is one of a growing number of US states to introduce stricter protections against child marriage. About a decade ago, child marriage was permitted in every US state under certain circumstances.
Another survivor, Sara Tasneen, said she was forced to marry a man nearly twice her age when she was 15. She said she met him for the first time on the morning of their arranged marriage and became a mother at 16 before leaving school.
Tasneen, who began lobbying for a ban in California in 2017, described seeing the legislation become law as the culmination of years of campaigning.
She said she was grateful that children in California would no longer be able to marry after the law takes effect on January 1, 2027.
