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Minimum age to legally get married in England and Wales has raised to 18

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Minimum age to legally get married in England and Wales has raised to 18

 

A new law has come into force in England and Wales where they have raised the legal age of marriage to 18. People could previously get married at 15 or 16 if they had parental consent but it has raised a few years now. The government have come up with this as it protects the younger vulnerable generation to being forced into marriage. Before forced marriage was only worrying if threats were used etc. But today the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act says that under any circumstances it is illegal for children to marry wether it is their own choice or its forced.

The new law changes only apply to England and Wales and not Scotland or Northern Ireland. Scotland’s minimum age requirements will stay as 16 and don’t need parental consent, whereas over in Nothern Ireland they would need the parents approval if they are under 18.

One of the campaigners named Payzee Mahmod is a surviver of child marriage along with her sister who was murdered in a killing for leaving her husband where she was forced to marry at the age of 17. When she saw the new law was coming through to England and Wales she was very emotional and said that “its probably one of the most important days of my life”. She also said that she knows in great details the harm of child marriage as she has been through it and so has her sister, and it can have a lot of impacts on girls and women when they do leave such as punishments of death where she can relate to regarding her sisters tragedy.

If anyone ever gets found out guilty of this they would have to face seven years in prison.

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