In 2025, Zonta Club of Hilo supported legislation in Hawai’i to end child marriage.
Although HB729 to end child marriage in Hawai’i did not pass this legislative session, we will keep working in future sessions to pass a law to prohibit child marriage with no exceptions in our state.
Based on Department of Health testimony on HB729, from 1/1/2010 to 9/30/2020, there were 216 people under 18 (153 brides, 63 grooms) where both claimed Hawai‘i residency and 19 marriages where one person under 18 was married to a non-resident. Although the majority of are within a few years of each other, there are a few outliers with 10-21 years age difference and two clear outliers where the groom was older by many years. In addition to these statistics, we do not know how many Hawai‘i based minors were married in another state.
Although these numbers might seem small, even one child marriage is too many.
As of 2025, only 14 states and DC have outlawed child marriage
Until every U.S. state — and every country — enacts legislation to protect females under 18 from being forced into marriage, thousands of girls in the U.S. remain at risk of missing out on education and the chance to be a child.
These 14 states and the District of Columbia have eliminated child marriage:
- Maine (2025)
- Washington DC (2025)
- New Hampshire (2024)
- Virginia (2024)
- Washington (2024)
- Michigan (2023)
- Vermont (2023)
- Connecticut (2023)
- Massachusetts(2022)
- New York(2021)
- Rhode Island(2021)
- Minnesota (2020),
- Pennsylvania (2020)
- New Jersey (2018)
- Delaware(2018)
The remaining 36 U.S. states still ALLOW CHILD MARRIAGES
STOPCHILDMARRIAGES.ORG
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)
Goal 05. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Goal 5.3 eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early, and forced marriage and female genital mutilations
Sara Tasneem was a featured speaker at the 2021 Zonta District 9 Conference