RALEIGH, N.C. At age 13, Judy Wiegand says community leaders gave her “suggested guidance” to marry the 16-year-old father of her unborn child. It was the 1970s. She remembers violence, difficulty raising her child, and her own childhood being taken from her, she testified to a North Carolina House judiciary committee on Tuesday. Now 57, Wiegand hoped those memories would stay in her past. .
Danielle Battaglia
The News & Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. Senators walked back a proposed bill that would ban child marriages in North Carolina, but amended it to match the state s laws on statutory rape.
Senate Bill 35, in its original form, would have banned anyone under 18 from marrying. When we first filed this bill, one of the things we were looking at is the fact that North Carolina has become a destination place for marriage for folks who are marrying children and for sex trafficking, Sen. Danny Britt said. What we wanted to do was come up with a bill that would take us off that list and protect these children.