Child Brides (Photo : YouTube)
A divorce was granted by a county court in Chongqing to Ma Banyan from her abusive husband. The husband, Chen Xueshen, got the custody of their two children.
Ma Banyan, then only 12 years old and an orphan, was forced to marry 29-year-old Chen Xueshen, a farmer, by her uncle, Ma Zhengsong, who was her legal guardian. China has a minimum marrying age of 20, but in impoverish and faraway towns, the law is just overlooked or ignored, noted Beijing Times.
After two years, Ma Banyan gave birth to a baby girl and after five more years to a male child. Because of his abuse, she left him several times and worked in Guangdong Province. When she was away, Chen Xueshen registered their marriage in her absence when she turned 20.
Ma Banyan did not contest the court’s decision to grant custody of the two children to her ex-husband because she did not want the burden of raising her two children. She had her first baby at age 14 when she was helpless and naïve.
However, with her independence, she regained a little confidence and hope to restart her life. But she does not have the financial capability to raise her daughter and son. Because the marriage was registered in her absence, she plans to file a lawsuit against the local police and county government.
She accused the two institutions and her ex-husband and his relatives for 15 years of abuse on her. Ma Banyan’s mentally sick mother, Fang Denglian, killed her husband in 1997 and left her and two sisters, Banzhen and Banhui, in the care of their uncle who also forcibly married them at ages 13 to older husbands when they were barely in their teens, according to the South China Morning Post. The uncle benefitted from their marriages because he was compensated by the families of the grooms in thousands of yuan.
