Senators Introduce New Child Marriage Bill

On Capitol Hill last week, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) "resurrected a bill intended to battle child marriages overseas that didn't make it through the House last Congress due to abortion and cost concerns," The Hill's "Blog Briefing Room" reports. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) co-sponsored the newly introduced bill.

The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act would require the federal government to develop an "integrated, strategic approach to reduce, and ultimately end, the practice of child marriage," according to a release from Durbin's office, the blog writes. "Child marriage denies these women and girls of an education, economic independence and is the root cause of many of the world's most pressing development issues -- HIV/AIDS, child mortality, and abject poverty," Durbin said in the release.

The bill "is a strong component of the fight against human trafficking, a despicable crime that occurs both at home and abroad and which perpetuates bonded labor, enslavement, and commercial exploitation," Brown said in a press release (Johnson, 2/19).

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