TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – From 2000 to 2015, 16,417 children younger than 18 were married in the state of Florida under a practice allowed by a Florida law that a group of activists and lawmakers are looking to change.
According to Florida law, 16- and 17-year-olds can be married with parental consent, and exceptions can be made for children of any age, if they are pregnant or have children.
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One such exception was made 46 years ago for then 11-year-old Sherry Johnson.
She had been impregnated by a man who had raped her.
“I was actually raped at 8 years of age, got pregnant at 9 (and) gave birth to my daughter at 10 years (old),” said Johnson, founder of the TaMar Foundation.
Johnson's strict religious parents forced her to become her rapist's bride. With a judge's signature, the two were husband and wife. Johnson said she was completely unprepared.
“You don't know how to be a wife. You have no idea what you're really getting into,” Johnson said. “All you can try to do is what I did and that's mimic those I had seen and watched.”
Now 57 years old, Johnson has written a book about her experiences. She’s on a mission to spread awareness and change a loophole in Florida law that she said is still victimizing children.
About 40 minors aged 15 and younger are married each year in the state of Florida, according to the latest statistics gathered by the organization “Unchained at Last.”
In 2014, legislation passed the House that would have banned marriage for those younger than 16, but it didn't gain any traction in the Senate. This year, however, a bill has been filed that would ban marriage for anyone younger than 18.
Senate Rules Chairwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, and Majority Leader Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, filed the bill (SB 140) for consideration during the 2018 legislative session, which will start in January.
“People are learning more [about] what actually happens here in the state of Florida,” Johnson said. “They're hearing about it, where before it was not something that was talked about. It was all, so to speak, pushed under the rug.”
If approved, the legislation would make Florida’s marriage law the strictest in the nation.
Johnson's TaMar Foundation is dedicated to fighting sexual abuse. To learn more about it, go to facebook.com/TaMarFoundation.
The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.