10-Year-Old Girl Tells Parents What A Man Did To Her After Church. What Happens Next Leaves Her Feeling Betrayed
By Mike-Ross
A Florida woman is speaking out about the pain she went through when her parents forced her to marry her 20-year-old rapist at the age of 11.
In a shocking article for the New York Times, author Sherry Johnson opened up about her forced marriage when she was just a child.
Johnson, whose parents were devout members of the conservative Pentecostal church, was raped and impregnated by an older member when she was just a little girl.
Instead of reporting the assault to the police, Johnson says her parents forced her to marry her rapist so they could raise their child together.
According to Johnson, child welfare officials had launched an investigation once they realized something was going on with the family’s church.
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Johnson believes her parents forced her to marry the 20-year-old man to nip the investigation in the bud.
"It was forced on me," she told the New York Times. "My mom asked me if I wanted to get married, and I said, 'I don't know, what is marriage, how do I act like a wife?' She said, 'Well, I guess you're just going to get married.'"
As Johnson explains in her piece, before her marriage finally dissolved, she and her husband had nine children together.
Aside from raping her, Johnson says her husband never helped her with their children, typically shirked the responsibility of paying for their expenses, and even abandoned the family on several occasions.
"It was a terrible life," Johnson recalled.
Because Johnson was only 10 years old when she first found out she was pregnant, she missed plenty of school.
Over the years, she was forced to bear several more children, and with each pregnancy she fell behind in her studies.
With no education, money, or work experience, it became impossible for Johnson to leave her husband.
“You can’t get a job, you can’t get a car, you can’t get a license, you can’t sign a lease,” she said, “so why allow someone to marry when they’re still so young?”
Years later Johnson is speaking out about her story in hopes that she may help stop child marriages in America.
As of now, Florida alone is one of 27 states in the U.S. that does not have a minimum age for a child to get married.
In states like Florida, children may get married at any age as long as they have permission from their parents.
Johnson is now fighting to have a minimum age put in place for Florida.
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