Trigger Warning
This post may contain stories or triggers memories that may be difficult for you, the reader, to consume. I apologize for that, but this website is entirely about talking about the things that we do not talk about. If you or someone you know needs help, please use this page to find a helpline phone number in your area. If you can’t find it on this list, please use any search engine in the world. You are not alone.
Trigger Warning
“I first stepped into the ring at 18 years old, and it had become one of the quietest places in the world for me. I found zen in the silence of that space.” – Dawn Tyree, Former Child Bride, Present Advocate and Freedom Fighter.
I first stepped into the ring when i was 23. Some say Black women have it harder, than white counterparts, but the struggle is real for all of us, it’s just different. I was 33, she was 18….We Both Fight Child Marriage – Devon J Hall, Loud Mouth Brown Girl
I won’t tell you Dawn’s story, except to say that at one point in her 13 years on this planet, Dawn was forced to be a child bride. I alternatively, was promised I would be a bride when I learned to take orders.
Beaten, tortured, raped, branded, and altered before the age of five, was a strange way to grow up, but by fifteen rape literally bored me. In the “been there, done that, what more could you do?” Nails, knives, spoons and boiling water – or the threats of – became the order of the nights they would visit.
I can’t tell you how many nights, or how often, but often enough that I remember enough details that they’ve all been identified now, or will be soon, to me no, but to those that need to know? Absolutely. I have a lot of people to thank for that, but none other than the girls who came before me.
“That’s Amazing, But It Can’t Happen to Me, It Won’t, I’m Different!“
I hope you never understand what it feels like to wake up and realize that yeah, you too. I hope you never have to have the realization that you’ve been abused, but given the statistics, you’re probably reading this because you know precisely what it feels like, or you know someone who does.
I woke up. I woke up from a nightmare on an airplane and realized that everything I’d been through wasn’t over, wasn’t finished, wasn’t going to be over for a very long time, and the fight that those of us who have suffered at the hands of adults while we were children, innocent, pure, and alone in the world, is everlasting.
Every Generation Tries To Kill The One After It – The Divergent Effect
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and it hit me the other day that my abusive grandfather was right. Every generation on this planet, does whatever it can to kill the one after it. “I survived this, so you have to as well,” is a hell of a way to raise children, and it’s predominantly why I’ve never been interested in having kids, I’m too busy warning the world that we’re seriously fucked up species.
We’re no better than crocs or alligators, we eat our freakin kid’s man, and no one’s paying attention, at least not the right people.
Enter women like Dawn Tyree, now there are women all over the world fighting child marriage, and the European, African, child bride train is long, vast, and incredibly well controlled, but the problem isn’t that it’s happening in those places, it’s that it’s happening everywhere.
Literally, every country, every city, every town, villiage, and continent, has someone – specifically a child someone – being sexually abused, hunted, and predatorated, by adults.
So, how the fuck do we stop it? Like I said Enter Dawn Tyree, Dawn and hundreds of her supporters from around the world are trying to pass a bill in California that would raise the legal age of marriage limitations, and stop child marriage.
Before you think I’m crazy, please click the link above and read her story, then go and check out the story that a news organization did on Foster kids being sold, bought, and traded over fucking Facebook.
Every single day on this earth, a child screams out for help, when it comes to being in the company of an adult, and even though there are more than 5 billion adults on this planet, that still doesn’t seem to be enough protection for the little ones of this planet.
This bill could in theory change the way that we look at the responsibilities of children and adults, and the way that we victimize children could be at a close end if more places around the world started to adopt anti-child bride or husband laws.
I’ve gone into my experience on this site in the past, and I’ve been careful when I’ve been able, to not out other victims, but given my experience, the number has to be in the hundreds of thousands. From Bountyville to Italy, there are children everywhere being abused and it needs to stop because they don’t know they are allowed to say #MeToo.
The National Center For Missing & Exploited Children is a global organization that works with legal minds and police officers around the world to help reunite children with their families, and they have millions of cases that are still incredibly unsolved.
There Are Ways You Can Help Online and Off
There are children missing in your neighbourhood, or that are at risk of going missing. You can do any one of the following things to protect the kids in your world.
- Create a community team so that youth know where they can run in case of an emergency. Perhaps create a team logo so that they can see it in your window during hours when you’re available to help.
- Make sure if you do this unless 100% Necessary, kids should NEVER enter your home unless their parents know you and have given you/their permission, but that they can stay in your yard until it’s safe again.
- Connect your social media to your neighbourhood app so you can share missing kids and person reports as they come in.
- Get the Amber or Missing Alert App for your community
- Volunteer with local organizations that help find missing persons
- Keep a close watch on the religious groups in your area
We are passed the point of pretending that “all Christians, (read any religious group period,)” are good people. Too many of us have been abused by all kinds of religious groups for that to be true, but this is especially true by people who garner a lot of favour by being “unbelievably kind until….”
Most of my protectors are people that “the good Christian folk,” would run from. So instead of judging those of us who come forward for who we trust understand that for us trust is an expensive commodity, and we don’t always have the luxury of trusting “only” the people we do.
If this bill goes through, the world could change for millions of youth and at-risk people around the world.
I’ve had the absolute pleasure of being able to sit with Dawn and having her hear my story, and for the first time in my life, I feel like there is hope for those of us who are like me, kids still finding that place where we can be free, instead of fighting for freedom that never comes.
If you’d like more information on Dawn’s work, check out Global Hope 365.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 