In one of his first acts as President, Trump signed an executive order that will restrict women’s health and threaten their lives. As Trump continues his attack on our core rights values, we need your help now on another vital women’s rights issue.

Did you know 14-year-olds can legally marry in New York State? And that from 2001 to 2010, nearly 4,000 teenagers younger than 18 married in New York?

In the vast majority of these cases, the girls wed adult men.

True, to marry at 14, girls need permission from their parents and a judge. But that doesn’t change the fact that child marriage is harmful to children; nor does it adequately protect children from being forced into marriage by their parents.

Studies show that girls in the United States who marry before age 19 are 50 percent more likely to drop out of high school than unmarried children, and girls who marry before 16 are roughly 30 percent more likely to live in poverty. Research strongly links child marriage with mental and physical health problems in the United States.

This month, a new bill that would end child marriage was introduced in New York’s state assembly.

Please write to New York lawmakers to tell them to back the bill and end child marriage. New York’s girls deserve better.

It’s time for each one of us to make our voices heard.