Raped at 8, pregnant at 10- then forced to marry her rapist at 11

Sherry Johnson is somewhat of an anomaly: a black woman who grew up destitute and survived child abuse. Her story is shocking. Raped at 8 and pregnant at 10, she was
forced to marry her rapist at 11. She had to abandon high school after the babies kept coming. For years, she kept silent. But now, her voice rings clear in chambers where the state’s laws are made. Her unrelenting public pleas to end child marriage are being heard. After a lifetime of struggle, Johnson’s time has come. Finally. At 58, she sports a head full of thick, tight curls and a pantsuit that would make Hillary Clinton proud. She navigates the corridors of the Capitol with a black binder tucked under her left arm, a purse slung over her shoulder and a fierce look of determination. I struggle to keep pace with her as she makes her way past sepia-toned photographs celebrating Florida in the early 20th century, as though they were glorious times for everyone. Past the rows and rows of framed faces of lawmakers who gained fame within these walls. “All men,” Johnson observes, as we dash by.

On this winter morning, days into the 2018 legislative session, she is on her way to meet with a state senator co-sponsoring a bill to abolish child marriage in Florida. An identical version has been introduced in the House. Johnson has spent the last five years lobbying lawmakers to stop the kind of abuse she suffered in her childhood. An effort to ban child marriage under the age of 16 got traction in the Florida House in 2014 but went nowhere in the Senate. Since then, Johnson’s words have fallen on deaf ears. Doors have closed on her. Until recently. As incredible as this may sound, Florida stands poised to become the first state in America to say no, unequivocally, to all marriages of minors.
Last year, Texas and Virginia enacted new laws limiting marriage to those 18 and over, but they made narrow exceptions for minors granted adult rights by the courts. The bills before the Florida legislature set 18 as the age for marriage and allow zero exceptions.

In Suite 202 of the Senate Office Building, Johnson gets a hug from Lauren Book, a 33-year-old senator from the south Florida city of Plantation who herself is a child abuse survivor and activist. Book has blond hair, a Florida tan and big, bookish glasses. Her walls are blanketed by inspirational quotations from Plato, Shakespeare and even Coco Chanel: “If you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack.” She displays a brass desk plate that asks: “What would Beyonce do?” Johnson has been testifying about her cruel childhood at the Capitol. Lawmakers say she has been instrumental in gathering support for the child marriage bill.
“Sherry and I have a lot in common,” Book tells me. “Until you put a face on this issue, people don’t understand,” she adds. “And Sherry has been that face. She has been able to destigmatize the process.” Book signed on as co-sponsor of the Senate child marriage bill introduced by Lizbeth Benacquisto, a Fort Myers Republican and rape survivor. The two women legislators embraced the #MeToo movement and have been vocal on sexual misconduct allegations clouding the Florida Legislature.
In Book, Johnson sees an ally.

If the bill passes, Johnson wants to stage a play based on her 2013 autobiographical novel, “Forgiving the Unforgiveable.” She’s also compiled a budget for a bus tour to promote awareness. She asks Book to help her brainstorm ways to raise money.
“When the bill passes, I want the community to know this has happened,” Johnson says. “I just want ideas. This is all so new to me.” “You’ve been working so hard to make all this happen,” Book replies. “You have a lot going on. Take a break.”
“I can’t relax right now,” Johnson says without hesitation. “I’m on a journey.”
‘I’m coming out’ I first spoke with Johnson a couple of months ago and was taken aback that child marriage was still a persistent problem in the United States. Child marriages are legal in every US state because of a hodgepodge of exceptions that let minors get married with parental consent or judicial approval.

A majority of these marriages are coerced and involve girls marrying adult men, according to the Tahirih Justice Center, a national nonprofit group that tracks child marriage and aims to end gender-based violence. The US State Department considers forced marriage a human rights abuse and, in the case of minors, a form of child abuse. Though child marriages represent a fraction of all US marriages, the numbers remain significant. The Pew Research Center found that in 2014, nearly 60,000 15- to 17-year-olds were in marriages. Few perceive America as a land where child marriage occurs; we think of developing nations like Afghanistan, Somalia and my homeland, India, which ignobly led the world with almost 27 million child marriages in 2017. When the bills before its Legislature pass, Florida will become the first state to ban, unequivocally, all marriages of minors.
My own grandmother was the same age as Johnson — 11 — when she was married off to my grandfather. My great aunt was 14 on her wedding day. When her husband died soon after, she led the austere life of a Hindu widow, ostracized by society until her death at 90 as though she were somehow to blame.
I was drawn to Johnson’s story and am even more so now, when increasing numbers of women are feeling empowered to speak out about abuse. The women’s movement has been gaining momentum and has helped push forward child marriage bills. Besides Florida, a dozen other states have legislation pending, though not all would set a strict age floor at 18.

In Florida, Johnson has been instrumental. She has been vocal about the cruel story of her childhood. She hopes that one day soon, she might be able to stand next to the governor as he signs a child marriage ban into law. That would be the vindication she has so earnestly sought. There has been little opposition to the bill, though critics would still like Florida to make exceptions for minors who are voluntary participants or if their would-be spouses are in the military. Young servicemen and women sometimes want to marry their girlfriends or boyfriends before deploying on dangerous missions. To that argument, Johnson retorts: “If you are under 18, you cannot make any other legal decisions. You cannot buy a house, join the military, vote, rent a car or drink alcohol. How is it possible then to make a wise decision about entering into a legally binding partnership, one that is meant to be permanent?
Johnson leaves Book’s office brimming with excitement. “You know that song, ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross?” she asks as we climb into her car. She starts belting out the lyrics: I want the world to kno

There’s a new me coming out. And I just had to live. And I want to give. I’m completely positive.
“This is exactly what’s happening,” she says. “People are coming out. My soul is so happy right now.” She was ambitions to organize a conference for survivors of child abuse and child marriage, so they can express themselves in public, just like she did when she testified before lawmakers. “So they can get it all out,” she says. She knows the importance of that first hand.
A mother and wife by fifth grade
As a little girl, Johnson lived with her mother in Tampa in the back of the parsonage of their church. She was an only child. Johnson and her mother belonged to an apostolic church and went to mandatory service six days a week, sometimes seven. Hats and long sleeves were required for the girls and women; they could not wear pants or jewelry. They behaved in accordance with strict church guidelines, and the elders told them what they could say or do.Johnson’s mother spent little time with her. When she did, it was to bake biscuits and fruit pies for the church. There was no television in the house, but her mother would, on occasion, sit down with Johnson with a coloring book and pencils. That is the fondest memory Johnson has of her childhood.
Johnson was forced to marry a man who raped her. She was so young she did not know how to act and mimicked the married couples she saw at her church.
Each day before school, Johnson sought out her aunt for lunch money because Johnson’s mother worked as a substitute teacher and could barely make ends meet.

Her aunt lived nearby in the same house as the bishop of their church, and one day, when Johnson was 8, he summoned her into his bedroom. I got your lunch money. Come and get it.
He forced her to lie on the bed, used petroleum jelly and penetrated her. He said nothing and then sent her on her way, blood dripping down her legs. Johnson ran to a bathroom to wash herself, but she was a child in the fourth grade. She could not understand what had happened.
After that, she was raped repeatedly by the bishop and also a church deacon. But when she tried to talk about it, no one believed her, not even her mother. It happened so frequently that Johnson accepted it as a part of growing up.Her elementary school classmates cruelly told her she smelled like fish.
Several months passed when, one day in class, she was summoned to a room where students received their vaccinations. Johnson was confused. She never got shots; her church forbade them.
She was examined by a nurse and sent back to class. A few minutes later, she heard her name again, blaring through the intercom. She was to collect all her belongings and wait in the office for her mother to pick her up. What had she done wrong?