America's
Child Marriage Problem
America/USA prides
itself in being the beacon of light when it comes to human rights and a strong
component of protection of its youth and justice for all members of its
society. Yet when one looks closely it can be seen that some of these tenants
are not held as strongly as one would imagine.
Reading just a few
articles on this topic, it appears that there some disparity when it comes to
the topic of young people entering marriage. There is a bit of an imbalance
when it comes to young people, particularly young women, who, while not old
enough to drink, vote or join the military; they can be married as young as 12
years of age in most states across the nation. The law includes a clause,
"with exception" which can be enforced in a number of ways.
Unfortunately, many
of these marriages present serious problems for the young female, that, under
other circumstances can be described as child abuse if the child is home living
with their parents.
In A NYTimes article
dated OCT. 13, 2015 and written by By FRAIDY REISS
NYTimes article: "America’s
Child-Marriage Problem"
Fraidy Reiss is
executive director of Unchained
at Last, a nonprofit that helps women and girls leave or avoid arranged and
forced marriages.
Unchained at Last
info here……..
"Child marriage chart reveals girls can wed at 12 in
some parts of the US - as lawmakers battle to raise age to 16"
'Several states -
including Massachusetts - allow children to get married 'in exceptional
circumstances'
From Independent from the UK an article posted on May 14, 2017,written by Andrew Buncombe entitled "New Jersey governor refuses to ban child marriage
because 'it would conflict with religious customs"
Could there be a
link between these young marriages, particularly those happening between young
girls between the ages of 12 (sometimes 9 years old) and 16, and pedophilia?
Are we looking at a
social justice system that penalizes a young person whose picture cannot appear
in the papers due to being a juvenile, but who cannot get support or help from
a justice system about various complaints of abuse, due to the fact that she
may be underage and married to the offender?
When an underage
victim of rape or incest has the right to plead their case in a court of law,
how is it that an individual of the same age has no right to testify against
her husband who may have violate her in a similar or maybe even more severe
fashion?
How is it that a
Children's hospital will address the medical needs of children up to the age of
24. Is not that establishment acknowledging that young people have medical,
mental and emotional issues that relegate them to the status of children or
underage.
This is a very
interesting topic that contains many, many contradictions in its employment
with folks on both sides of the aisle.
The Social Justice
Experiment video shows the natural
response that folks have to the concept of an older man marrying a young girl
perhaps decades younger than he, and yet these laws are still on the books
throughout the USA and still practiced in other countries around the
world. Why doesn't the reaction of these
people get the laws to change?
The Children of this
world are at risk on so many levels. We can only hope that people will come to
the realization that this is true and do something about it!
What are your
thoughts?
Leave your comments
below.
Thank You.
LINKS OF INTEREST
America’s Child-Marriage Problem
|
Child marriage chart reveals girls can wed at 12 in some parts
of the US - as lawmakers battle to raise age to 16
|
New Jersey governor refuses to ban child marriage because 'it
would conflict with religious customs'
|
UN-Arrange a
Marriage … RE-Arrange a Life
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB