The legal age for marriage will be raised from 16 to 18 in England and Wales under plans backed by MPs today.
The government has backed a Tory MP’s Bill that will ban 16- and 17-year-olds marrying with parental or judicial consent.
It will also crack down on arranged marriages by making it easier to prosecute parents who send their children off to be wed, either in England and Wales or outside the UK.
Currently it is only illegal to force a child into marriage using “violence, threats or coercion”.
Under the new law it will be illegal to “carry out any conduct” aimed at causing a child to be wed. That could include booking a flight or a venue.
Tory MP Pauline Latham, who brought the Private Member’s Bill, said: “They are too young to make that decision themselves.
"The point of this Bill is to stop them having their parents make that decision on their behalf.
"They are not old enough to do it.”
She raised the case of Payzee Mahmod, who “was just 16 when she was coerced into marrying a man literally twice her age, 32, who she didn’t know. And that’s in this country, not abroad.
"She didn’t want to - she wanted to continue her education and go to university.”
Ms Latham said Payzee’s sister, Banaz, “was married to an abusive husband. When she tried to leave them, her family told her she would be shaming them.
"She did leave, but then was murdered by men from her own family and community.”
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed: “Forced child marriage ruins lives.
"We back this Bill to keep vulnerable young people safe, by raising the legal age of marriage to 18, and closing gaps in the law which leave them at risk.”
The Bill passed its second reading today and will now go into a committee, further stages and the House of Lords before it can become law.
However, it does not change the law in Scotland or Northern Ireland where 16-year-olds can wed, nor make it illegal to help a 16- or 17-year-old wed legally in those two countries.
Marriages with parental consent have already been declining - only 124 of 234,795 people entering opposite-sex marriages in 2018 were under 18.
But Ms Latham said the figure did not include many unregistered marriages or those happening abroad.
She told MPs: "For many people I speak to, it is a shock to learn that child marriage is not illegal in this country already and it happens far more often than you might think.
"In the last 12 months, the national charity Karma Nirvana has responded to 76 known cases of child marriage within England and Wales, with the youngest case concerning a seven-year-old girl.
"We know all too well the devastating impact that child marriage has on young children."
The MP for Mid Derbyshire added: "The whole point of the Bill is to stop these young people being victims because they are. And even if there's prosecution, we should not expect them to be criminalised.
"It is not their fault, they are the victims in this situation and what we should be doing is supporting these young people."
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