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Minimum marriage age rises to 18 in England and Wales
A new law increasing the legal age of marriage to 18 has come into force in England and Wales.
Previously people could get married at 16 or 17 if they had parental consent and there was no law against ceremonies for younger children which were not registered with local councils.
The new legislation also covers non-legally binding ceremonies.
The government said the changes would help protect vulnerable children from being forced into marriage.
Previously forced marriage was only an offence if coercion, such as threats, was used.
But under the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act, it is now illegal to arrange for children to marry under any circumstances, whether or not force is used.
Those found guilty of the offence face up to seven years in prison.
The changes do not apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the minimum age for marriage will remain 16. In Northern Ireland parental consent is required for those under 18 but not in Scotland.
Ministers in Northern Ireland have previously said they plan to increase the minimum age of marriage to 18 but with the devolved government not currently functioning legislation cannot be brought forward.
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Payzee Mahmod, who was born in Kurdistan and came to the UK at the age of 11, was married at 16 to a man nearly twice her age. Her sister, Banaz, who was married at 17, was murdered in a so-called “honour” killing in 2006. Now a campaigner for the IKWRO women’s rights organisation, Mahmod told the Guardian in 2020 that her sister “was forced into a child marriage to a stranger and there was no law to protect her”.
She added that girls like her and her sister were victims of “subtle institutionalised racism”, adding: “None of my teachers, social workers, neighbours, all those wedding shop retailers … nobody asked if I was safe. All that tells me is that it is because of how I look and where I’m from.”
In 2021 the government’s Forced Marriage Unit intervened in 118 cases involving child victims; courts have also issued 3,343 forced marriage protection orders – preventing someone from using threats, violence or emotional abuse as a way to force a person into marriage – between their introduction in 2008 and September 2022.
The charity Karma Nirvana, which has protected girls as young as 11 from child marriage and is a member of the Girls Not Brides coalition, assisted 177 children at risk of forced marriage through its helpline between 2020 and 2022.
