The Untold Story is a new series on A&E featuring former ABC News and 20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas. Each two-hour episode reveals the often unseen and unheard stories of victimized people. In the episode “I Was a Child Bride: The Untold Story,” Vargas reveals “the heart-wrenching stories of child marriage victims” who have escaped “the most dire of circumstances.”
One woman tells Vargas she was 11 years old when she was forced to marry a 20-year-old man. Another woman, who was forced to marry at 16, says her father’s signature was enough for her to get legally married. Ironically she was old enough to marry but not old enough to divorce.
According to A&E, child marriage remains legal in 48 states. And in the past 15 years, an estimated 200,000 girls have been forced into marriage in America. These survivors are speaking out to try to prevent what happened to them from happening to other young girls. I Was a Child Bride: The Untold Story premieres on A&E on Thursday, April 25 at 9 pm.
