Child Bride? By Toni L.A. Cross

 Grossly underage marriages are far more common today than you think. In situations where the husband is much older, there is often frequent domestic abuse.

Some Facts:

More than 100 million girls in the developing world will be married during the next 10 years.

Although the definition of child marriage includes boys, most children married under the age of 18 years are girls.

While the practice has decreased globally over the last 30 years, it remains common in rural areas and among the poorest of the poor.

In Southern Asia, 48%—nearly 10 million—of girls are married before the age of 18.

In Africa, 42% of girls were married before turning 18.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 29% of girls are married by age 18.

Excerpt taken from http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/341/facts.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What are you doing

Taking that life?

What are you thinking

This child is your wife?

What do you want

To control someone else?

Why do you beat her

With your leather belts?

To crush a spirit

Is that your game?

To rule over silence

A person with no name?

Then don’t call it marriage

This dictatorship

Just call it slavery

With an overseer’s whip

Advertisement

Think That Thought? by Toni L.A. Cross

A skittering concept

Born of emotion

Grows in rapid

Hectic motion

Breath caught

Fills void space

In a frantic race

A second

An unguarded neutron

A moment of brilliance

And darkness revealed

A thought

Just a thought

And a nation froths

They simmer

They boil

Deceptive calm

Then

Eruption

Carnage

Broken survivor

You

Who dared to think

That thought

Take a few minutes to hear her story…

There are more than 30 million slaves in the world today. 
More than at the height of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Please take the time to experience one victim’s journey.

Click the map below:

Calling All Writers and Poets and Artists…

Slave in Waiting… A Multimedia Poem by Toni L.A. Cross

  

She peers out of broken glass

Smeared with all that’s crude and crass

The glass is like her life

It cuts her with its knife

She is old and broken

Her pain pools unspoken

No way to escape

This endless rape

She peers out with shattered eyes

Heavy with tears she never cries

The tears are like the curtain of beads

Strung and hanging useless weeds

Tacky and in the way

Like the thought that she should pray

If God did care

She should see Him somewhere

Won’t He send someone

To undo what is done?

Does no one know

That she is here down below?