On December 1, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act (S. 987). The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the legislation on September 21 (see The Source, 9/24/10).
According to the committee report, the bill finds that child marriage violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and would authorize the president, through the State Department, to develop a multi-year strategy to provide assistance to countries that have “rates of child marriage exceeding 40 percent and to replicate or expand successful efforts to prevent child marriages.” The measure also would “promote the educational, health, economic, social, and legal empowerment of girls and women.”
