Most people do not know that only seven states completely ban child marriage. In the United States between the years 2000 and 2018, 300,000 minors under the age of 18 were legally married. These are mind-blowing statistics.
One former child bride turned activist knows this firsthand. Dawn Tyree is working hard to make sure others do not suffer like she did because the adults in her life did not stick up for her. She wants this practice completely outlawed in the United States.
Dawn’s father and stepmother encouraged her to spend time with an older man when she was just 11 years old. This man began to groom her and gained her trust. By age 13 she was pregnant, and her family advised her that the only way out of this unwanted situation was to get married.
"The solution was marriage. Marriage covers up the rape, the sex abuse and the child endangerment. The marriage saved him from a prison sentence and essentially put me in a prison," Dawn said.
Dawn got married the summer after sixth grade. She did not know what else to do and was given horrible advice by the adults in her life.
"As minors, we can't do anything about it. It was a confusing time. It is brainwashing — call it what it is,” she said.
"It would've been really nice, if one adult out of the 30 adults in my life might have had the courage to stand up and say something. The generation of minding your own business is a thing of the past — we want more for our children,” Dawn said.
Dawn was rightly terrified to give birth. The World Health Organization explains that when children give birth, they have higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections. She got through the first birth but got pregnant again the following year.
When Dawn got pregnant a third time, she found the courage to leave for her children’s sake. "I became concerned about sexual abuse directed towards my children. So after my daughter was born, I began to try to plan a way out. When I became pregnant again, I felt very trapped, so I made the decision to terminate the pregnancy and I escaped without a plan,” she recalled.
When Dawn left her rapist husband, she had nowhere to go. She was turned away from a women’s shelter because she was a minor, and she could not go to a runaway shelter because she had kids. It was a hopeless situation for anyone to be in, let alone a 16-year-old girl.
"I had to separate our family unit, because my children deserve to be housed and fed, so they went with their paternal grandparents and I tried to get my feet on the ground. Once I found a roommate situation, I took my kids back,” she recalled.
Dawn lived in constant fear of losing her children. She had to wait until she was 18 to divorce her husband and rebuild her life. She never wants anyone to go through what she did.
"It's no longer about me. I can remove all of my trauma and show up for the other 13-year-old brides. I'm speaking for those who are silenced — for those who don't have a voice,” she said. "There are people out here aware of these circumstances that feel so lonely and isolating. We're fighting for you. Hang in there. Hang on.”
In 2018, the Child Marriage Prevention Act was introduced in Congress but got no traction. The United States did, however, make a pact as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that includes ending child marriage by 2030.
