GIRL SCOUTS Barrington teen receives highest honor for advocacy Cassie Levesque fought for tougher child-marriage laws

BARRINGTON - The Girl Scout whose advocacy sparked a statewide and national conversation on child marriage laws was awarded the Gold Award, the highest Scouting achievement.

Cassie Levesque, 18, of Barrington and a 2017 Dover High School graduate, worked with her local state representative, Jackie Cilley, to craft language for a law that would have raised the marrying age from 13 years for girls and 14 years for boys to 18.

House Bill 499 was unanimously recommended for passage when it came out of the Children and Family Law Committee, but the bill was killed in March after a motion to indefinitely postpone the bill was passed 179-168. The vote to postpone was mostly along party lines, though 18 Democrats voted with Republicans, including three Portsmouth representatives, and one representative each from Durham, Dover, Madbury and Rochester.

Even though the bill was killed, Levesque was catapulted into the national spotlight for her work. Her first-ever media interview was in January. Since then, she's been interviewed Boston media and then the New York Times, Time Magazine, Cosmopolitan, BBC, London Times, London Independent and is scheduled to be interviewed by Teen Vogue this week. Earlier this month, she made an appearance on the TV show "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee."

Levesque's idea to change state legislation started after she attended a workshop at the Girl Scouts' annual Senior Leadership Conference in March 2015. The workshop was focused on human trafficking and forced child marriage presented by the United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF). After the conference, Levesque wanted to know about the laws in her home state.

"I was shocked and appalled," she told Seacoast Sunday in January when she learned that state law allowed young teens to get married. "I wanted to get rid of it and make it more just."

The state's current law on marriage is broken into two parts - the age of consent to get married and the marriageable age. The current age of consent is 18 years old; the marriageable age is 13 for females and 14 for males who receive permission from parents or guardians and show "special cause" to state courts for approval.

Since her bill received attention, Levesque said she's been contacted by young women around the country and the world who seek her advice in changing laws.

"I'm still amazed how big this has gotten," she said on Tuesday. "This has sparked many young girls and other people to help the fight against it, both nationally and internationally."

On May 7, Levesque was presented with the Gold Award at a ceremony in Dover with Girl Scout leaders, mentors, family and friends. Her mother, Patty Levesque, has been Cassie's troop leader since she first started the program in kindergarten. Cilley and Rep. Ellen Read of Newmarket presented Levesque with a state flag flown over the statehouse, and a copy of the New Hampshire State Constitution signed by the state's all-female Congressional delegation: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster.

But while she is often at the center of the discussion, Levesque insists, "It's not about me. I'm just the one pointing the light where it needs to go."

Levesque, who is working as a camp counselor this summer, plans to start this fall at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester. Her goal is to be an elementary school art teacher.