COLUMBUS, Ohio — International organizations call it a form of “modern slavery” when they refer to forced child marriages, and advocates in Ohio say it’s not happening that far from home.
In Ohio alone, between 2000 and 2024, had more than 5,000 minors who entered marriage, said Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, and 90% of them were girls married to adult men.
Recently, Ohio lawmakers paused Senate Bill 341 which is a bipartisan bill looking to raise the age of marriage from 17 to 18-years-old, but advocates like Reiss and Stephanie Lowry say the more they wait, the more victims there will be…