My name is Donna Simmons, and I know firsthand what child marriage does to a life.

I am the founder of the REVIVE Collective, an organization dedicated to transforming trauma into purpose. I am also a multi-generational survivor of childhood trauma and child marriage.

Because I was forced into marriage before I was ready, I had to drop out of high school before finishing the 10th grade. Instead of building a future, I spent years fighting just to survive — clawing my way out of poverty while navigating systems that failed to protect me.

But the truth is even darker than that.

My underage marriage didn’t protect me.
It enabled my abuse.

The man who married me used that marriage license as cover to control and exploit me. My forced marriage paved the way for me to be trafficked in a strip club, where the power imbalance between a child and an adult man was hidden behind a piece of paper that the law treated as legitimate.

The marriage license gave him credibility.
It gave him control.
And it gave him protection.

This is exactly how systems of exploitation operate.

When powerful adults are able to legitimize their access to young girls through antiquated laws, abuse becomes easier to hide and harder to prosecute.

We saw the world react in outrage to the Jeffrey Epstein case, where immense power imbalances allowed the exploitation of young girls to continue for years. 

But the truth is this:

When our laws allow children to marry adults, we create similar power imbalances — legally sanctioned ones.

And those power imbalances are easily exploited.

My story is not unique.

Between 2000 and 2018, more than 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. Most were girls married to adult men, and some were as young as 10 years old, though most were 16 or 17.

Many Americans believe child marriage only happens overseas.

It doesn’t.

It happens here.

And sometimes, instead of being prosecuted for sexual abuse of a child, the adult responsible can avoid accountability by marrying the victim. In some states, marriage can even be used as a defense against statutory rape laws.

That is not protection.

That is legalized vulnerability.

The consequences of child marriage are devastating and well documented.

Girls who marry before age 19 are:

• 50% more likely to drop out of high school
• 4 times less likely to graduate from college

Girls who marry in their early teens are up to 31% more likely to live in poverty later in life.

Women who were married as children face higher rates of psychiatric disorders and are 23% more likely to develop serious health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, heart attack, or stroke.

Violence is also far more common. Girls and young women ages 16–24 experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence, and girls 16–19 experience these rates at nearly three times the national average.

But one of the most disturbing realities is what happens after a child is married.

In many states, married minors do not gain the rights of adults, but they also lose the protections normally given to children.

That means a married minor may not be able to:

• File for divorce independently
• Sign housing contracts
• Access domestic violence shelters
• Seek protective orders on their own
• Leave home safely without being returned by police

In other words, once a child is married, they can become legally trapped.

Child marriage can also occur through immigration loopholes. Between 2007 and 2017, at least 8,686 petitions for fiancé or spousal visas involved a minor.

Despite these realities, laws across the United States remain inconsistent.

Only 16 states currently set the minimum marriage age at 18 with no exceptions. In many others, children can still be married through loopholes involving parental consent, judicial approval, pregnancy, or other circumstances.

As long as these loopholes exist, children remain vulnerable.

Families or perpetrators can simply take minors across state lines to places where the law is weaker.

Meanwhile, the United States government already recognizes the harm.

The U.S. Department of State considers the forced marriage of a minor to be a form of child abuse, and national strategies addressing gender-based violence identify child marriage as a human rights issue occurring both globally and here at home.

Yet despite this recognition, children in America are still being legally married.

It is time for that to end.

Children cannot vote.
They cannot sign legal contracts.
They cannot make many medical decisions.

They should not be allowed to enter a lifelong legal contract like marriage.

We must establish 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage nationwide — with no exceptions.

I know what happens when the law fails to protect children.

No child should have to spend years rebuilding the life that should have been protected in the first place.

Please sign this petition and demand that lawmakers across the United States end child marriage once and for all.

Set the minimum marriage age at 18 — with no exceptions.

Together, we can ensure every child has the chance to grow up before being pushed into adulthood.

I made the difficult decision to place the full truth of my life—my experiences with abuse and sexual exploitation—into the hands of the public through my memoir, Ashes to Flame: Transforming Trauma Into Purpose. I did this because I believe my life’s purpose is to help survivors reclaim their voices and rewrite their legacies.

I was born into ashes.
But we are built to REVIVE—ourselves and others.

You can learn more about my story by watching the video below: