Child Marriage Banned in Virginia
On April 8th, Virginia became the 12th state to ban child marriage. Virginia began the national push to end child marriage in 2016 when the minimum marriage age was raised to 16 without exceptions. Child marriage most often affects young girls. In Virginia from 2000 to 2021, 81% of child marriages (any marriage involving someone under the age of 18) were between a minor girl and an adult man. Child marriage presents many causes for concern including: many states have a minimum age of 18 for divorce, many domestic violence shelters do not accept minors, and statutory rape often becomes legal under child marriage laws. This legislation is an important step in protecting the human rights of children in Virginia.
On April 19th, the U.S. Department of Education released new Title IX regulations that will go into effect on August 1st. The ruling expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity, sexuality, and pregnancy related conditions. Trump-era protections for students accused of sexual assault will be rolled back. The expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students reflect the 2020 supreme court case Bostock v. Clayton County. This ruling will mean that trans students’ use of chosen pronouns and names and right to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender is protected under the law. However, the ruling does not address the issue of transgender athletes though there is a potential ruling in the works that was proposed in April 2023. This ruling is an important step in protecting queer students and students who are sexual assault survivors, and as such there has already been national backlash over the issue.
The Barbie movie was banned in many countries in various countries around the world. The reasoning for banning this blockbuster hit in countries such as Kuwait and Lebanon was that the film “promoted homosexuality.” This baseless assumption stops large populations from being exposed to this media. Media censorship was a subject the class discussed and students shared their personal experience with confirmation bias. Some students even noted how they don’t often see things that disagree with them, and they wish they were shown a wider array of perspectives on issues. The Barbie movie was also banned in multiple countries in the South China Sea area due to the description of a 7 dot line on the theoretical world map. The inclusion of those lines and the location they chose to place them at, motivated Vietnam to stop the screening of this movie commercially. This territorial claim has been long-standing and it’s interesting to see what in Western Media serves as a point of contention in other countries.
The article on water scarcity in Jordan talked about current Solutions in the agricultural realm. Solutions included things like hydroponics and recycling greywater. Jordan is the second most water scarce country in the world and also a country that has received a record number of unexpected refugees following the Syrian Civil War. The article covered how vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected by the lack of water and how local NGOs are trying to better this problem.During The Newsroom, students gave their personal accounts of water conservation. This opened a conversation about specifically dishwashers. There were many different perspectives on what the best way to conserve water was, however we all overarchingly agreed that we take water for granted and should be doing our part to serve the earth. This newsroom was on earth day.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 