Imagine this: a 14-year-old girl is impregnated by a man exceeding 20 years of age. She--a girl too young to drink, drive, enter into legal contracts without a guardian's signature, and too young to have consensual sex with the man who has already impregnated her--can legally marry him. All she needs is the approval of a judge.
Now, imagine a woman effectively trying to ban marriage for those under the age of 17. Next, imagine people who claim to be concerned with "family values" shooting down her attempt.
This happened in Kentucky's state legislature on Friday, March 2nd, 2018. In a state where marriages involving girls as young as 13 have been recorded, an attempt to prevent such institutions has been thwarted.
Among the bill's supporters is Kentuckian Donna Pollard. At age 14, her anger and behavioral problems led her to a behavioral health facility in Indiana, and there, she met a 29-year-old counselor. When she was released, she returned to Kentucky and started dating him, with the approval of her mother. Her mother, who had gotten married at the age of 13, went so far as to drive Donna to meet her boyfriend on the weekends. In 2000, she signed off on her daughter's marriage; Donna was 16 years old and her husband was almost twice her age. He soon became violent and abusive, and Donna is now a divorcée and an advocate against child marriage.
In Kentucky alone, 10,941 teens have been married since 2000. 84% involved a grown man marrying a teenage girl, 9% involved the reverse, and 7% involved two teenagers. There have been 113 recorded cases where one party was more than twice the age of the other. What's more is that Kentucky doesn't experience the highest number of child marriage: it trails behind Texas and Florida, which, to the states' credit, have both been making steps towards reform.
However, Sherry Johnson was only 11 years old when she was forced to marry her 20-year-old rapist, and it was in Florida that a Pinellas County judge signed off on it. The wedding was organized by her church to avoid legal charges, as Sherry had become pregnant and child welfare authorities had begun investigating. The marriage didn't last, but it did interrupt Sherry's attendance at elementary school.
The New York Times also reports finding cases of married 12-year-olds in South Carolina, Alaska, and Louisana. To quote: "A great majority of the child marriages involve girls and adult men. Such a sexual relationship would often violate statutory rape laws, but marriage sometimes makes it legal."
In New Hampshire, girl scout Cassandra Levesque discovered that it was legal for girls as young as 13 to marry in her state. She attempted to change the law, but the Republican-led legislature shot it down. To quote representative David Bates: “We’re asking the Legislature to repeal a law that’s been on the books for over a century, that’s been working without difficulty, on the basis of a request from a minor doing a Girl Scout project.” So, Cassandra's old enough to get married but too young to talk politics?
Being a native of rural North Carolina, this problem strikes a chord with me. In my freshman year of high school (before I moved away), one of my close friends started dating a 20-something-year-old. Her mother approved of the relationship, and from what I've gathered from social media, they've been married for some time now. I'm not sure if she ever graduated. I knew of another girl from my high school who was married and divorced by the time she was 17, having been pressured into marrying an abusive Ft. Bragg soldier by her mother. The culture of the rural South is one actively accepts--and even encourages--child marriage, and so long as it's legal, young girls will be pushed out of their homes into the arms of abusive men.
Perhaps what's most infuriating is the confident hypocrisy with which our politicians attack brown countries for doing what we (apparently) full-throatedly endorse here in the States. I can't help but think US child marriage would be eradicated if Muslim men were the ones raping, impregnating, and marrying young girls. But no: it's almost entirely poor, white, Christian men leading the charge of marrying children, and Republicans have to respect their base.
For reliable resources and respectable organizations to donate to, there's Unchained at Last, which specifically targets child marriage in the US, the Tahirih Justice Center, which advocates for immigrant women and girls in the US, and RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
