Fight Child Marriage: Ending the Cycle of Systemic Oppression

Child marriage is frequently framed as a distant problem that is only present in other countries. However, while many may not be aware, child marriage is actually legal in 34 U.S. states. The severity of this issue is often overlooked, and the lack of action against it creates a multitude of problems. Fight Child Marriage is a recently formed club at Stuyvesant, established to both make a positive change and to spread the awareness that is essential to bring an end to this practice.

The lack of discussion surrounding child marriage is what led sophomore and Fight Child Marriage President Sophie Wong to found the club. She first learned about child marriage through a post online. “I created Fight Child Marriage because I saw an Instagram post about a nine-year-old getting married at Disneyland. I immediately thought it was fake, as Instagram often is, so I searched up the laws in America. To my shock, it said in California, there is no minimum age to be married as long as parents consent. The Instagram post ended up being a fake wedding in Disneyland Paris staged by a pedophile and sex offender,” she said in an email interview. Researching marriage laws in the U.S. motivated Wong to take action. “Seeing how these laws are never talked about made me feel obligated to do something,” she shared. The impact of the lack of laws banning child marriage is clear: an estimated 314,154 children were legally married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2021. About 96 percent of them were 16 or 17 years old, and the youngest child was only 10 years old. Legal recognition of these marriages often shielded the child rapists involved from prosecution, even when the younger spouse was below the age of consent.

One of the most significant challenges in spreading awareness about child marriage is combating misinformation. “The main misconception about child marriage is that it only happens in other countries. When we hold bake sales, students stare in confusion, and we’ve had many adults stop by and ask if it’s actually true,” Wong described. This misconception stems from and reveals a larger bias shaping people’s perception of the country as a whole: “The crucial lesson from child marriage in America is that our country is not perfect. Many people, including myself, make assumptions about the laws in our country because we think there’s no chance the ‘greatest’ country in the world could allow something so ancient and horrendous,” she expressed.

Since the effects of child marriage on those involved are not always made clear, the severity of the issue is frequently misunderstood. “[T]he average age difference between a girl and her husband is four years. For the majority of child marriages, it isn’t two happy teenagers in love; it can be a child and their rapist […] Child marriage is not simply an issue of not being ready; it can be years of abuse and repeated rape,” Wong explained. Child marriages are often forced or coerced. Many children enter them under threats and pressure from their families and cannot escape due to a lack of support from both their families and the legal system. A lack of awareness prevents advocacy against an issue that many would likely feel strongly about.

Sophomore and Fight Child Marriage Outreach Director Chloe Kwok further extended this point in an email interview: “Some misconceptions about this issue are that child marriage doesn’t happen anymore, or it only affects extremely remote places. In reality, this issue still affects millions of girls a day.” This harsh reality highlights a widespread crisis, where millions of girls suffer with little hope as meaningful action remains absent. The global severity of child marriage is evident, with 12 million girls under the age of 18 being married every year.

There are clear steps that can be taken to address child marriage. “Some important steps are to strengthen laws that set 18 as the minimum legal age with no exceptions. Improving access to education for girls and supporting international programs that empower girls are also important actions we can take,” Kwok explained. Establishing a legal set of rules would bring awareness to this issue, preventing many cases of minors getting married.

​​In order to make an impactful change, the Fight Child Marriage club takes action to ensure that its efforts are successful. Sophomore and Fight Child Marriage Social Media Director Rosemel Vilchez explained her role through an email interview: “I’m the Social Media Director and create posts as well as many posters to raise awareness on the topic. I’m in charge of reaching out to people through platforms like Instagram. To raise awareness and promote the cause, we host bake sales, meetings, posts, and create posters that donate funds to our nonprofit.” Advocating on social media allows people to educate themselves on the issue while giving them a chance to make a difference through their engagement. Beyond spreading awareness, using social media can inspire people to take action themselves. This might include creating political art, making short videos talking about child marriage, and much more, showing that social media not only informs but also influences real change.

Fight Child Marriage also works with other organizations to spread their message. “As the Outreach [Director], I work on connecting our club with outside organizations. This includes contacting other student clubs or organizations for collaboration,” Kwok shared. Finding other organizations that are also invested in this issue is crucial, as it helps the club extend its reach to spread its message. Collaboration with other clubs can occur over email and through messages, or even in-person. Collaborating with other clubs helps maximize visibility on child marriage.

In addition to collaboration, true human interaction and learning from people’s stories is incredibly important. Sophomore and Vice President Raisha Khan explained this importance in an email interview: “Definitely talk about it, open up and share their experiences because it can help others.” Sharing real-life experiences allows people to connect on a more personal level, allowing them to educate themselves through the experiences of others. The club also aims to organize new events in the future, including hosting guest speakers. Members also share if they’ve seen any new cases of child marriage on social media or online platforms, fostering meaningful discussion. Creating opportunities like this puts things into perspective by allowing individuals to put themselves in the shoes of those who have had these experiences.

Beyond this country, child marriage reveals underlying problems in a global society: “Child marriage is a system of how authorities and systems treat children as commodities. By addressing this, we learn to dismantle broader systems of oppression. Recognizing the rights of a child to their own body and future helps us further the cause of all humanistic issues and general liberation,” sophomore and Fight Child Marriage Outreach Director Ziqi Deng explained in an email interview. Combatting child marriage is fundamentally about the freedom and humanity of the people and their autonomous right over themselves, their bodies, and their futures. By recognizing this and advocating for an end to child marriage, people are empowered to challenge all systems that have the ability to violate their intrinsic dignity. “By bringing interest to the cause, we break the cycle of ‘invisible’ suffering and force the system to treat children as human beings with agency, rather than property,” Deng concluded.

Ultimately, systems of oppression are no more than the people who build, maintain, and enable them. The only way they can be overcome is through taking action, backed with accurate facts from statistics that reveal the severity of the problem and personal stories that humanize its reality. This means that it is up to each of us to take on the responsibility of educating ourselves in order to contribute to the fight against child marriage, whether that be by involvement in clubs or organizations or by simply doing research and having meaningful discussions.