How people reacted to the sight of a 'child bride' in Times square
'You're a f***ing sick pervert'
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
A 65-year-old man and his 12-year-old "child bride" stand in the middle of Times Square posing for their wedding photos.
Holding hands, as he smiles grimly the young girl stares vacantly at the floor.
One passerby comes up to the young girl and asks her: "Where is your mom?".
But the girl doesn't answer, and the man replies to the question in a foreign accent: "She's in the house."
When the woman says: "She's young", the older man replies:" She's young, yeah, but the parents, they give me permission."
Other people accost the man, telling him: "This is bull****, this isn't right" and "'you're a f***ing sick pervert".
But the groom and his bride aren't real and the wedding is, in fact, staged. They are part of a social experiment to highlight the prevalence of child marriage.
The video was orchestrated by YouTube Coby Persin to illustrate the prevalence of the problem around the world in which 33,000 girls are forced to marry every day.
In his description for the video, the 21-year-old YouTube star writes: "New Yorker's didn't stand for a child getting married to an older man, and neither should anywhere else in the world be ok with it!"
The United Nations Population Fund has estimated 1.2 billion girls will be forced into child marriage by 2050.
In countries including the UK, young girls are being married to much older men without the knowledge of schools or authorities, according to child marriage charity activist Jasvinder Sanghera,
Ms Sanghera says: "It’s very much a British problem happening to girls and boys in our classrooms, and schools are not spotting the signs.
"The evidence is compelling; it’s damning, and it’s been around in Britain since 2005.
"But the cases we know about are just the tip of the iceberg."
The video follows a similar social experiment in Lebanon.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments