SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (IRN) — In the past 10 years, thousands of young girls, some as young as 12, were married to older men in the United States. State Rep. Joe Sosnowski, R-Rockford, says many girls and some young men are forced into early marriages by their parents.

Under current Illinois law, it is legal for a 16- or 17-year-old to marry with the consent of a judge or of the parents. Sosnowski has introduced legislation in the House that will raise the legal age to marry in Illinois to 18.

A person needs to be 18 to vote or to buy a gun in Illinois, Sosnowski said. It makes sense to make 18 the minimum age for a person to get married, Sosnowski told The Center Square. He said the effort has enthusiastic bipartisan support in the General Assembly. 

“We have a multitude of laws that say adulthood starts at either 18 or 21. Why it should be 16 to get married is an anomaly,” Sosnowski said.

Most of the 16- and 17-year-olds who marry are young girls who are married to older men, Sosnowski said. Sosnowski is concerned that many of them are pressured into marriage.

“It’s the parents who say this is going to happen. The youngsters have no recourse,” Sosnowski said.  

Sosnowski became aware of the problem when one of his staff members told him about the work of Unchained at Last, a group that lobbies against marriage for minors. According to Unchained at Last, 7,500 minors have been married in Illinois in the past 10 years.

“There is a fine line between consent and coercion,” activist Fraidy Reiss, founder of the group Unchained at Last, said on the website. “Even when a marriage is labeled ‘arranged’ and the bride and groom get the option to say no, they might face intense pressure from their families and society, or they might be too young and inexperienced to make such a life-altering decision.”

Minors who refuse to marry have been locked up or beaten to force them to comply, Reiss said.

“There are a lot of very bad situations that happen,” Sosnowski said. “Forced marriages can facilitate sex trafficking,” he said.

What about the classic situation where a 16- or 17-year-old gets pregnant and the girl and the baby’s father want to be married before the baby is born? 

“Under the law, they will have to wait until they are 18,” Sosnowski said. 

Eighty percent of people who marry under the age of 18 wind up seeking divorces within a couple of years, Sosnowski said. 

Sosnowski expects the General Assembly to approve the measure to raise the legal marriage age to marry in Illinois to 18 during the current legislative session. 

Unchained at Last was founded in New Jersey in 2011 by Reiss, a survivor of forced marriage.

It provides crucial legal and social services – free of charge – to help people escape arranged/forced marriages,” the group’s website says.

By ANDREW HENSEL for the Illinois Radio Network