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not today satan
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11 Years Old, a Mom, and Pushed to Marry Her Rapist in Florida
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When she was a scrawny 11-year-old, Sherry Johnson found out one day that she was about to be married to a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her.
It was forced on me, she recalls. She had become pregnant, she says, and child welfare authorities were investigating so her family and church officials decided the simplest way to avoid a messy criminal case was to organize a wedding.
My mom asked me if I wanted to get married, and I said, I dont know, what is marriage, how do I act like a wife? Johnson remembers today, many years later. She said, Well, I guess youre just going to get married.
So she was. A government clerk in Tampa, Fla., refused to marry an 11-year-old, even though this was legal in the state, so the wedding party went to nearby Pinellas County, where the clerk issued a marriage license. The license (which Ive examined) lists her birth date, so officials were aware of her age.
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Youre thinking: Child marriage? Thats what happens in Bangladesh or Tanzania, not America!
In fact, more than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000 and 2010, according to a search of available marriage license data by a group called Unchained at Last, which aims to ban child marriage. The search turned up cases of 12-year-old girls married in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina, while other states simply had categories of 14 and younger.
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Johnson, the former 11-year-old unwitting bride who is now fighting for Florida to set a minimum marriage age (there is none now), says that her family attended a conservative Pentecostal church and that other girls of a similar age periodically also married. Often, she says, this was to hide rapes by church elders.
She says she was raped by both a minister and a parishioner and gave birth to a daughter when she was just 10 (the birth certificate confirms that). A judge approved the marriage to end the rape investigation, she says, telling her, What we want is for you to get married.
It was a terrible life, Johnson recalls, recounting her years as a child raising children. She missed school and remembers spending her days changing diapers, arguing with her husband and struggling to pay expenses. She ended up with pregnancy after pregnancy nine children in all while her husband periodically abandoned her.
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Lets listen to ourselves. State legislators must understand that child marriage is devastating in Niger and Afghanistan and also in New York and Florida. Its past time to end child marriage right here at home.
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