A Girl Had To Marry Her Rapist

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

When Sherry Johnson was just 10 years old, she was raped by the minister of her Florida Pentecostal church and one of the parishioners. As a result of one of these violations, she became pregnant, so she was forced to marry the parishioner, who was in her 20s, to cover up the crime.

According to The New York Times, her family and those responsible for her church wanted to end the marriage with the investigations that the state department of Child Welfare had launched. After giving birth to her firstborn, she became pregnant again, and another, and another, until she had a total of nine children.

"It was a terrible life," he told the newspaper about his childhood and teenage years. She was unable to finish school and her life was limited to satisfying her husband's sexual desires, cleaning the house and changing diapers, all amid tensions with her partner and struggling to pay the expenses. "They removed the handcuffs to put on me," he said.

Johnson, who is no longer married to the man who raped her, is now one of the supporters of a bill before the Florida state parliament that sets a minimum age for marriage. "[A child] can't get a job, can't get a car, can't get a license, can't sign a rental agreement," he observed, "so why allow someone to get married when it's still so young?".

As the newspaper warns, child marriage is not a phenomenon limited to developing countries, as you might think. At least 167,000 children under the age of 17 married in 38 U. S. states between 2000 and 2010, according to the Unchained at Last group.

This entity has found in its investigations marriages of girls as young as 12 years old in Louisiana, South Carolina and Alaska. In other states, files only identify the 14-year-old or younger category on marriage certificates. The Times noted that often, as in Johnson's case, these weddings are intended to hide violations.