Explore the sinister truth about forced and child marriage in the United States through the harrowing experiences of tho | dG1fRUtOZEZQNnVfbDQ
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:05 >> I was picked up from high school at the age of 14 and
00:08 married off to a 26 year old man.
00:11 >> I had the handcuffs actually put on me to marry my rapist.
00:15 >> I was targeted as a vulnerable child and groomed.
00:19 I suffered abuse, exploitation, entrapment, and manipulation.
00:23 [MUSIC]
00:25 >> Forced and child marriage is something people haven't talked
00:27 about in the United States.
00:29 >> The concept of marriage, the concept that I was going to get
00:31 married was a conversation that we started to have
00:35 right around the time I was maybe 11.
00:37 >> Where I was raised, I was groomed basically from
00:41 infancy to become a wife and a mother.
00:44 >> My upbringing was so separated from boys and from men.
00:49 I had very little interaction.
00:50 Boys and men make a blessing every morning thanking God for
00:53 not making them a non-Jew or a slave or a woman.
00:57 >> You're not gonna find your own husband.
00:59 The matchmaker is going to find you a match.
01:01 >> We were taught to kind of obey without questioning.
01:04 My dad sat me down and
01:05 told me that you're not allowed to have sex out of marriage.
01:09 You're gonna get married.
01:10 >> A forced marriage is one that takes place without the full and
01:14 free consent of one or both parties.
01:16 And it typically involves one or
01:18 more elements of force, fraud, or coercion.
01:21 >> As a young person or even as a 25 year old,
01:23 if you've grown up in that same household and
01:25 you don't have a lot of independence,
01:27 those threats are incredibly powerful.
01:29 They're often the ones that get people to give in.
01:31 >> To be told that really that's not what your heart's desire is,
01:35 and that you're just lying, is crushing.
01:39 >> What we're talking about is forced consummation, which is rape.
01:42 And honestly, I don't think a lot of people think about that when they think
01:45 about forced marriage.
01:46 >> At any moment, someone can just barge in and take your body.
01:52 When you're a kid and then you're forced into something,
01:54 you don't know why it's wrong.
01:56 >> When he first threatened to kill me,
01:57 he would describe to me in detail how he was going to kill me.
02:00 And it was very graphic and very scary.
02:03 And I said to him, I have tasted life without you and it is sweet.
02:07 You're not coming back.
02:08 I filed for divorce soon thereafter.
02:10 >> End child marriage now, ask your dad, I'll tell you how.
02:15 >> We have to pass legislation in all 50 states.
02:18 >> We can do this by finally ending early forced child marriage,
02:22 an unjust, unfair, and archaic practice that is severely affecting the very core
02:26 of our nation, the children of America.
02:28 [MUSIC]
02:32 >> Child marriage is not just a problem that occurs in countries on the other
02:38 side of the globe, but it happens right here in our own very backyard.
02:44 [MUSIC]