Durbin, Snowe resurrect bill to press administration to battle child marriages

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) this week 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 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.

{mosads}“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 a statement. “This bill makes it the policy of the U.S. government to end child marriage around the globe.”

UNICEF estimates that 60 million girls in developing countries now ages 20 to 24 were married under the age of 18. The bill expresses the sense of Congress “that child marriage in developing countries undermines U.S. investments in foreign assistance” and requires the president to submit a report within 180 detailing the administration’s strategy for countering the practice. It also allows financial assistance for authorized programs.

A similar bill was unanimously approved by the Senate last year but was killed in the House. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), now chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed concern that the health funds in the legislation could be used to promote abortion.

The House vote in December was 241-166, but then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) brought it up under suspension of the rules that requires a two-thirds vote for passage.

The cost of the bill in 111th Congress would have been $108 million over five years. Ros-Lehtinen introduced her own bill with a $1 million price tag.

The bill is also co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

“The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act 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,” said Brown in a statement. “I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of the reintroduction of this bill, and it is my hope that both the House and the Senate will pass this important piece of legislation in a bipartisan effort.”