California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states
Gov Gavin Newsom called it a "long overdue measure to protect young Californians".
California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states
Brittany Bee was married to a man while still a teenager.
California has now formally outlawed child marriage, after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill aimed at ending a practice that remains legal in 32 US states.
The new law, set to take effect on 1 January, requires anyone marrying in the Golden State to be 18 or older.
Newsom described it as a "long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors". He signed the legislation alongside Courtney Stodden, whose parents permitted her to marry a 50-year-old Hollywood actor when she was only 16.
Stodden, who has campaigned to end the practice, called the move a "victory" and said survivors of child marriage should "never have been expected to carry this burden".
Gov Gavin Newsom called the law "overdue"
Stodden said she would "keep fighting until children are protected from marriage in all 50 states".
She married actor Doug Hutchison - known for roles in The Green Mile, A Time to Kill and I Am Sam - in 2011, prompting international headlines over the controversy and appearances on several US reality shows, including the VH1 series Couples Therapy.
Other survivors of child marriage also welcomed the new law.
"California has sent a clear message to the world today," Brittany Bee, a former child bride, told the BBC. "A message of hope for all children that they may be free from systemic violence. That they may choose their own path."
Bee told the BBC she was married at 17 in an effort to escape an abusive home - only to then be allegedly abused by her adult husband.
"I was just going from one prison to another," she explained. "People have the audacity to tell me that I made a choice - kids, they can't consent."
Bee and other survivors of child marriage have spent years pushing to ban child marriages in California and across the United States.
Around a decade ago, the practice was still permitted in every US state, but more and more states have changed their laws. California is the 18th state to ban it since 2018.
In California, there had been no legal minimum age to marry, allowing children to wed as long as their parents agreed and a judge approved the marriage.
There was also no way for people under 18 to divorce, and many girls say they were trapped in abusive and predatory relationships.
Unchained At Last, an advocacy group working to end child marriage across the US, said about 9,000 girls were married each year in California and that almost all child marriages involved girls and adult men.
Advocates say many people in the US do not even realise that child marriage is legal in so many states, or that it has led to allegations of abuse.
Sara Tasneen, who says she was forced to marry a man nearly twice her age when she was 15, told the BBC it felt "surreal" to finally see the state acknowledge that child marriage should be banned. She says she began lobbying for this herself in 2017.
She was introduced to her husband on the morning of their arranged marriage.
"I was forced to be his wife and that day, my entire life changed," she told the BBC. She became a mother the following year, at 16, and left school.
"To have seen the arc of this bill come to fruition has been a marathon," Tasneen said. "I'm just grateful that kids cannot get married after January 1, 2027 in California."