ABC did an investigative report on child brides that aired this last week.
I will post the link below so that you can watch it. A few things that I would like to point out.
- If you only pass laws banning child marriage in some states but not all. Some states become child wedding destination spots. Thus only adding an obstacle to child marriage not effectively ending it.
- As I have said before child marriage most often is a cover up for statutory rape. Not start crossed teenage lovers.
- When your a child and applying for a marriage license no one asks you if this is something that you want to do or if you need help. In my case the night before I got married I tried to push against going through with in. My husband to be pointed out that my mom had signed over power of attorney to him. I had asked for help, my uncle. my adult brother, family friends. None of them helped me. Looking back I could have not signed the marriage license I guess. I could have ran, but to where? What would have happened then? I had a stepfather that terrorized me so much that on two occasions I thought he was going to kill me. If I didn’t go through with the marriage then what?
- Help is difficult to get. As the video here states; if a child reaches out for help because they are going to be forced into a marriage or has recently been forced into a marriage. If you take them in you can be in trouble for kidnapping. Child marriage is legal in most states in US. Parents can legally marry off their children in the US. Laws must change and not just in some states.
- Adapting and surviving your situation is not the same as being OK in it.
- I keep hearing this excuse that we need to keep the minimum marrying age low so that children can escape horrible home lives. Children escaping abuse and troubled home lives are exactly who we should be working to protect! They are incredibly vulnerable and most likely have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like. You are setting them up to trap them in more violence, abuse and most likely poverty. Almost all child brides drop out of school. We need to come up with a much better ” solution” for these children who are trying to escape troubled homes. This excuse is pitiful.
The real problem is a support system for vulnerable girls that have achieved a woman’s body but not the maturity to navigate their own agency. Most try to convince these children that they have no say in their own life. I was married off at 14 due to the lack of ability for my mother to care for me and my siblings. She was disabled and just unable to care for me.
This issue is a support system for these girls as an option to let them grow up without being sexually objectified. What does that look like?