Girl 'forced to marry minister rapist at 11 after he got her pregnant aged 9 – and went on to have 6 kids by 16'

A FLORIDA woman has told how she was raped by her church deacon at the age of eight and forced to marry him at 11 after having his baby.

Sherry Johnson was just a child when her then-18-year-old church deacon entered her home while her parents and sisters were out at church and sexually violated her.

"All you had to do was walk down the steps from the church and you'd walk into our kitchen," she said.

"And that's where he raped me. I woke up with him on top of me. Many times."

No longer able to turn to her religion, Johnson turned to the only person in her life she knew she would be able to confide in: her mother.

"I didn't understand what really took place. I did tell my mother. I had no idea what words to really use," she said, detailing how difficult it was for a second-grader to understand what had happened to her.

"The only thing that came to mind is, I remember, I said, 'Mom, the deacon messed with me'."

In The Sun exclusive, Johnson outlined her child rearing and her sexual assault. The Sun also looked at the state of child marriages as a whole.



Expecting comfort and action, Johnson soon saw how quickly that feeling turned to denouncing what had been uttered.

"She said, 'no he did not. He don't do that kind of stuff'. I said, 'Mom, he did,'" Johnson recalled telling her incredulous mother of the horrific experience.

Unfortunately, the only person in the world she thought she could trust did not trust her.

Johnson's mother again brushed off her own daughter's experience, saying, "And she told me, 'that's not true'. My mom, for some reason, she seemed to blame me for what happened."

This soon turned to public humiliation as Johnson's mother would spread false rumors about her own daughter to the entire church congregation.

"She told other people that I was fast. She would get up in that church and tell all the members 'don't believe my daughter.'"

Johnson felt humiliated. But more so, disappointed.

"I was a sacrifice to cover up what he did."

In the ensuing months, Johnson found herself more and more isolated, to the point the now-9-year-old considered running away from home but had nowhere to go.

It was then she discovered even more tragic news: she was pregnant following her rape.

When social workers became involved, her mother pressured her to keep the father's identity a secret, and instead sent her away with the deacon.

As she and the church leader made their way from Tampa to Miami, he pulled over and raped her again at seven months pregnant.

Thousands of miles away from what she considered home and in her rapist's custody, Johnson gave birth alone, without her mother showing up for the birth or her own granddaughter.


“Was it horrifying having a child so young? Yes it was," Johnson said of her 9-year-old self.

"It was devastating. It was a situation in my life that I didn’t know exactly what to do – I was still a child myself.

Two years later, Johnson was forced to marry her rapist. To make matters worse, it was in the same church she had attended her entire life, and her own mother even made the wedding cake, dress and veil.

“Then I was forced to marry my rapist at the age of 11," Johnson said.

“I found a little bit of security in the marriage because my mother told me to do it – so I thought there must have been something OK with it.’"

After their local county refused to give theg license between an 11-year-old and 20-year-old, her own mother drove to a neighboring county instead.

"The state of Florida failed me. The school knew. The hospital knew. The doctors knew," Johnson said.

"The courts knew. Nobody protected me – not one person. Not one."

In the years following the sham wedding, Johnson gave birth to five more children, becoming a mother of six at age 16.

And even after the deacon was sent to prison for not paying child support, Johnson couldn't go forward with divorce proceedings because she was under 18.

After getting help from a solicitor who helped her escape the deacon, Johnson went on to earn her high school diploma and mother three more children but she was upfront with all her kids about how she came to have them.

"I am a mother of nine children. I am a grandmother of 34 grandchildren. I'm a great-grandmother of three children, with one on the way. And I'm grateful for that," Johnson said.

"It was hard but I endure. The most grateful thing that I say is happening for me right now is to be able to talk about what happened in my past," Johnson said. "To be able to help others. I was raped, and not only that, I was forced to marry my rapist at the age of 11."

Johnson is now working to make Florida the first state to ban child marriages. She spent the last five years lobbying to lawmakers to pass a bill banning child marriage like she had once endured, and thanks to her, the state has since banned marriage under the age of 17.

"I ended up in a situation where it wasn't easy to get out of, and that's one of my reasons for doing what I do," she said, detailing an effort to ban child marriages under age 16 that had plenty of support but stalled in the Florida House in 2014.

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But she's seeing newfound support for a new bill that is sponsored by Florida State Senator Lauren Book, also a victim of child abuse. Book and Johnson are working on new legislation which would ban child marriages completely under age 18.

"When the bill passes, I want the community to know this has happened," Johnson said. "I just want ideas. This is all so new to me."

"I consider myself a voice for the voiceless," she concluded.

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