On 14 September 2016, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing on “Protecting Girls: Global Efforts to End Child Marriage, the second in a series on girls’ issues following a hearing on girls’ education in the summer of 2016.
The hearing consisted of two panels, starting with witnesses from the U.S. Government, followed by a civil society panel that featured testimony from Girls Not Brides Executive Director, Lakshmi Sundaram, and Suzanne Petroni from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).
Subcommittee Chairman, Senator Marco Rubio, and Ranking Member Barbara Boxer held the hearing, while Senator Dick Durbin and Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues, Catherine M. Russell, two long-time champions of efforts to end child marriage, gave brief remarks.