VOA – CONNECT EPISODE 83 AIR DATE 08 16 2019 TRANSCRIPT OPEN ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) Child Marriage ((SOT)) ((Kathleen Burns, Dyersburg, Tennessee)) I got pregnant underage and that was, kind of, what had us go ahead and get married so I wouldn't send him to jail. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Finding Their Voice ((NATS)) ((SOT)) ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) The Pihcintu Chorus was created to give immigrant and refugee children their voices back. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Coming Into Her Own ((SOT)) ((Ranee Ramaswamy, Founder/Co-artistic Director/Choreographer/Performer, Ragamala Dance Company)) My parents were so proud of me, because my dad used to say, “You dance, but don't say you are my daughter,” you know. All of that changed with the honors and the opportunities that I have received. ((Open Animation)) BLOCK A ((Banner: The Worth of a Girl)) ((ANIMATION W/ CAPTIONS, PHOTOS)) CHILD MARRIAGE STATS FOR WORLD, US ((Pop-Up Banner over still/GFX)) 21% of children worldwide are married by the age of 18. While rare in the US - 0.6% - child marriage is legal in most states. ((PKG)) CHILD MARRIAGE: KATHLEEN BURNS ((Banner: Child Marriage: Kathleen)) ((Reporter: Carolyn Presutti)) ((Camera: Mike Burke)) ((Edited by: Phil Dierking)) ((Map: Dyersburg, Tennessee)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Kathleen Burns, Dyersburg, Tennessee)) Kathleen Burns. I live in Dyersburg, Tennessee. I work all the time, take care of my baby and the husband, hang out with my buddies. That’s about it. ((NATS)) Well, I met him about, when I was like, 13, 14. They lived next door to me and hung out with his family and his friends or his sisters and I don't know, we just, kind of, started becoming friends, and I got attached to him. I probably had a little crush, you know what I’m saying? And he couldn't ever keep a girlfriend because they didn't like me being around him. So, one thing after another. After a few years, we just, kind of, ended up together. ((NATS)) I got pregnant underage and that was, kind of, what had us go ahead and get married so I wouldn't send him to jail. A lot of people looked down on him for it and stuff. That's, kind of, why he didn't want to do this at first, you know, but, like I told him, I don't care what anybody thinks. I love him, you know. It is what it is. ((NATS)) I mean, we're like any other married couple. We’ve had our problems. I mean, we split up. I went and stayed with him for a little bit, but we just know we want to live with each other. We want to be with each other, you know what I mean? So, we worked through our problems. I couldn't live without him. ((NATS)) My mom was against it. She was like, you know, ‘Y’all shouldn’t have done it. You can take your consequences for it.’ Me and my mom ended up having a lot of problems, you know, but she stuck by me through everything, so I love that woman to death. ((NATS)) Head cook at Neil's Barbecue. I just, kind of, stuck around, you know, stayed unlike everybody else and he just kept moving me up, giving me raises, so I stayed there. ((NATS)) I did not graduate. After I had Zena, got hard to get a babysitter and stuff. I needed money. Candice got me the job. I just dropped out, and they, kind of, just let me slip through the cracks. ((NATS)) I made it to 11th grade and I had one more year, should have finished it out honestly. I regret that every day. Eventually I'll get my GED, but grown-up life is really hard, so, you know. ((NATS)) Well, before I married, honestly, I was a kid. So, there was really no bills. I don't really miss nothing about it, except just having to grow up and do the adult thing. Man, it's hard. It is hard, but other than that, I don't really miss nothing, you know. I'm fine with how everything turned out with me. ((NATS)) Zena, my little girl, she is my pride and joy, and I will do everything to take care of her and protect her, so. My mom always asks me if I would let her get with somebody older. No, I probably won't, because, you know, we did have a lot of issues through our, I mean, it put me through a lot, mentally and physically, and uh-uh, I would not let my daughter do that. And probably marrying young. Yeah, no. It'd be a no just 'cause I know where I'm at right now from making them decisions. I don't know, I mean, I should have waited. I truly believe that. I should have waited, but things came up. I should have waited on having the baby, you know, because you really do need to be 18, in my opinion. You need to be grown up. You need to have your childhood. I lost all of my childhood. ((NATS)) I do regret, you know, not finishing school, growing up way too fast. You know, that's just stuff you shouldn't do when you're a kid, honestly. I see that all now. I didn't see it then, though, so, and you can't change it. ((PKG)) CHILD MARRIAGE: ASHLEY DUNCAN ((Banner: Child Marriage: Ashley)) ((Reporter: Carolyn Presutti)) ((Camera: Mike Burke)) ((Edited by: Phil Dierking)) ((Map: Steele, Missouri)) ((Main characters: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Ashley Duncan, Steele, Missouri)) My name is Ashley Duncan. I’m 25. I live in Steele, Missouri. I’m a stay-at-home mom and I’m a Christian. I have four boys. I have a 7 year-old, an 8 year-old, a 5 year-old and a 4 year-old. I got married when I was 15. I had just found out I was pregnant, like, not long before I got married because I got married in February and I found out I was pregnant at the late January. I met Daniel on a school bus. I was actually 14 when I met him. He was, like, very quiet and mysterious and, I guess, my 15-year-old brain was into quiet and mysterious. We got together. We had talked about it, to get married, but we never actually said that it was going to be something that I did because I was pregnant. And I was 15, Daniel was 18, and my family had believed that in the state of Missouri, that if you are over 18 and have intercourse with anybody under 18, that it was statutory rape or something. So, they had told us that he would go to jail whenever I had my child. I was pregnant and just going with what they told me to do. Didn’t find out until last year that that’s not the law here in Missouri. So, I could have had my child without him going to jail. So, I was coming home from school. I had just found out I was pregnant. My aunt got on the bus and she told me to get off the bus, that I was going to go get married that day. All I can remember is hearing all those kids gasping and was like, ‘She’s too young.’ We went to the courthouse and got our marriage license, and then we went to a preacher’s house here in Steele and he married us. I don’t think either one of us realized how big of a commitment we were making then. I know that day, I think, I was happy, but I know I was, there was definitely fear and doubt in my mind. I mean I was happy that I was about to do what I thought would start a family and I was excited more for the future than, I think, I was for the present. We fought a lot and we eventually split up and I didn’t go back. You know when you’re young, you tend to believe people when they tell you that they love you, and then you also tend to listen to people when they tell you to do things. So, I dropped out of school whenever I found out I was a few months pregnant. I haven’t really had much studying since then. I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of sleepovers. I was always talking to my friends, always doing something with them, and whenever I decided to get married, friends didn’t really come around anymore. A few months after I got married, my cousin got married. She was also 15. She was two months younger than me. And then, my other cousin, he got married at the end of that year, and he was 16. I wasn’t the first one in Steele to get married. I knew it happens more often than not. I can name at least four from my school, besides my family. Now, I feel like I wasted so much of my life, and it didn’t have to happen. I just wish people would realize what they are doing. I mean, I don’t regret my kids at all. Just wished I would have done things differently. TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) The Cost of Child Marriage ((SOT)) ((Quentin Wodon, Lead Economist, World Bank)) You often have 20, 30 percent of the girls who drop out of school who do so because of child marriage or pregnancy. When girls have lower levels of education, they tend to earn much less in adulthood. BREAK ONE BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK B ((PKG)) PAM STRAWBRIDGE ((Banner: An Official’s View)) ((Reporter: Carolyn Presutti)) ((Camera: Mike Burke)) ((Edited by: Phil Dierking)) ((Map: Caruthersville, Missouri)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Pam Strawbridge, Recorder of Deeds, Pemiscot County)) My name is Pam Strawbridge, and I've been in this office for almost 40 years. I started in the Collector's office in 1977. I came in this office in January of 1980 and I’ve been here ever since. We've had a lot of marriages since 1980. What bothers me is 14 and 15 year-olds coming in here to get a marriage license and get married, because I really just don't think that they are experienced enough. They don't even know what marriage is. You haven't got your driver's license yet at 15, and marriage is supposed to be a lifetime thing. And, you know, if you have to get your mom or dad to sign for you, you know, that tells you something, you know. In Tennessee and Arkansas, which are our bordering states, you can't get married at 15. So, instead of staying there in their states, they just come to Missouri, get their marriage license, get married, and then go back to their states, which doesn't seem fair or right either, you know. If you can't get married in that state, then you shouldn't get married. Is that not as important, being married, as being able to vote and drink liquor? I don't know, maybe, just they don't think it is important. I mean, I didn’t either. I got married at 19. I still didn't know all that. Really, you don't know what kind of life these teens have had already with their mother and father, or grandmother and grandfather, you know. I know a lot of them have grown up a lot differently than I did. I had a mother and father. They knew how to take care of their kids. We didn't have a lot, but we had love, and we knew that. And I don't know that all of these do. I mean, they just come from a bad home, a lot of them, I think. I think very few of them do finish high school after they get married. You can't learn everything in school. There's some things you have to learn at home, and if you don't learn it at home, what do you have, you know? You know, I wanted to tell him those things, but that's not my business, you know. I'm here to sell marriage license and issue marriage license, and that's what I do. But, if they do all the steps that it takes to get a marriage license, I can't refuse. I have to issue the marriage license. Like I said, it's not really what I want to do, but I do. Who knows if they're going to mess up their lives? Maybe it's going to make it better, you know. I hope that it's going to make it better, but that's not what I think. I think, oh no, here's another one going to go get married so young. It's just too young to me. It's not something I would want for my child, and I can’t understand it sometimes why the parents do. But, like I say, you never know what kind of family they're coming from. ((PKG)) WORLD BANK ANALYST ((Banner: An Economist’s View)) ((Reporter: Carol Guensburg, Hayde Adams-Fitzpatrick)) ((Camera: Karina Choudhury)) ((Edited by: Phil Dierking, Martin Secrest)) ((Map: Washington, D.C.)) ((Main characters: 1 male)) ((Quentin Wodon, Lead Economist, World Bank)) Most of the girls, who marry before 18, do so because there is a lack of viable alternatives. The best alternative is to keep the girls in school, but it's not always feasible. You may have the schools being far away. You may have the schools being too costly to attend. You may have the schools being of low quality, which means that parents will have a hard time making the financial sacrifices that are necessary for the girls and the boys to remain in school. It's not so much an issue that, in many contexts, parents do not want to do the best for their daughters. They do, but often there is no alternative. Then, it may be that parents lead their daughters to be married at a young age, and many parents try to protect their daughters sexually. But the largest cost for child marriage was related to fertility. What happens is that if you marry early, you are going to have, on average, more children over your lifetime. And that has huge implications, in terms of poverty rates, in terms of GDP per capita, and so on. And we have a large cost, because if you have many more mouths to feed, for example, in your household, that would lead you to have lower levels of consumption per person. You're going to be poorer. The second largest cost is earnings. Child marriage is not the only reason why girls drop out of school. There are other reasons, but it's certainly an important reason in many countries. You often have 20, 30 percent of the girls who drop out of school who do so because of child marriage or pregnancy. When girls have lower levels of education, they tend to earn much less in adulthood. They don't have access to the same jobs. They're not as qualified. So, we have a large loss in earnings. I'm optimistic in general, and in quite a few countries, you have a large decrease over the last 20 years or so. You have quite a few of the countries where there has been a lot of progress. I think there has been a shift in many countries in terms of the thinking, and there has been a realization that it was feasible to reduce dramatically and hopefully end child marriage, and the benefits would be very, very large for the country. PROMO LINK ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) The Worth of a Girl For more on this project, visit https://projects.voanews.com/child-marriage/ TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) A Girl’s Voice ((NATS)) ((SOT)) ((Fatimah Lamloom, Pihcintu Chorus Member from Iraq)) When I sing on stage, I feel empowered. I feel as though when someone hears our songs, that they are going to be touched in some way and they are going to make a change. ((NATS)) BREAK TWO BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK C ((Banner: Finding Her Voice)) ((PKG)) PIHCINTU CHORUS ((Banner: For Love of Song)) ((Reporter/Camera: June Soh)) ((Map: Washington, D.C.)) ((Main characters: 1 male, 4 females)) ((NATS)) ((Sara Ali, Pihcintu Chorus Member from Sudan)) I like being in the Pihcintu Choir because it gives you a voice for who you are, and with every voice, there is a story behind it. ((NATS)) ((Girl1)) I am from Uganda. ((Girl2)) I am from Iraq ((Girl3)) I am from Sudan. ((Girl4)) I lived in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. ((NATS)) ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) The Pihcintu Chorus was created to give immigrant and refugee children their voices back, because the very first thing you lose when you come to a new country, quite literally, is your voice. So, being able to join a chorus of like-minded kids, who also struggle with language, is a very positive and powerful way to bring these kids into the culture and into the English language. ((NATS)) ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) I am a singer-songwriter, composer, television producer, and I founded Pihcintu, this multinational refugee and immigrant girls’ chorus, 14 years ago in Portland, Maine. We have 34 girls from 21 countries. ((NATS)) ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) Pihcintu is an (American) Indian word and it means when they sing, their voices carry far. ((NATS)) Please welcome, Pihcintu. ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) So, we are based in Portland, Maine, but we were invited to come and perform at the One Journey Festival here in Washington, DC. ((NATS)) ((Vanda Berninger, Co-founder, One Journey Festival)) One Journey Festival is a celebration of the people, who experienced unimaginable struggles, and come in to new societies, and thrive. I think the Pihcintu Choir represents our mission. ((NATS)) Somewhere where we all can live together..... ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) I write a good deal of the songs for the girls. They choose some of the songs, some of their repertoires. So, it’s a group effort. ((NATS)) ((Con Fullam, Founder, Pihcintu Chorus)) The songs really have to do with peace and love and lack of violence, because these kids all come from areas of violence, war torn countries, great violence that has had a tremendous impact on their lives. ((NATS)) ((Fatimah Lamloom, Pihcintu Chorus Member from Iraq)) When I sing on stage, I feel empowered. I feel as though when someone hears our songs, that they are going to be touched in some way and they are going to make a change. ((Nyawal Lia, Pihcintu Chorus Member from Sudan)) I joined this chorus when I was very young. And in 2013, I began to do advocacy work, through this chorus, for the South Sudanese people who are going through the genocide and going through famine and all of that. ((NATS)) ((Sara Ali, Pihcintu Chorus Member from Sudan)) I've learned that family does not have to be from blood because these girls are practically like my family now, even though we are not blood. They are who I am, and they are what made me who I am. And that is like one of our songs, We Are Family, and I think that speaks. ((NATS)) ((PKG)) PIA – RANEE RAMASWAMY ((Banner: For Love of Dance)) ((Executive Producer: Marsha James)) ((Camera: Kaveh Rezaei)) ((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou)) ((Map: Minneapolis, Minnesota)) ((Courtesy/Video clips: Ragamala Dance Company)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Ranee Ramaswamy, Founder/Co-artistic Director/Choreographer/Performer, Ragamala Dance Company)) Dance to me is God, almost my spiritual practice. I knew that there would never be a chance for me to perform. In India, it was not possible. And then, when I came here, never did I think I would get another chance to perform. So, I would say dance is my religion. My name is Ranee Ramaswamy. I am the founder, co-artistic director, choreographer and a full-time performer with the Ragamala Dance Company. ((NATS)) You know, dance in India itself has a very religious and spiritual background. So, I studied the dance form from southeast of India called Bharatanatyam. So, it is an art form that has rhythm, expression, emotional content and spirituality. This art form uses every part of your body, every part of your face. You are constantly emoting. You have to be able to constantly draw the audience into your story. ((NATS)) There are two words called ‘Bhava’ and ‘Rasa’. ‘Bhava’ is the emotion that we put in, and ‘Rasa’ is the taste or the feeling that both, both of us get, the audience as well as the dancer. So, I would say, emotionally it's a very complex art form. ((NATS)) I think I am the best person when I dance. I get stressed very quickly, but when I dance, the calmness that happens to me, I'm centered. I feel that this is my opportunity, it's my purpose, and I just, I get engaged and involved in it hundred percent. That's when I'm a good, proper and the best human being. ((NATS)) In my style, the rhythmic dances might become difficult, as you age, to dance, because very strong rhythms you do bare feet on the ground with the plie position of your knee. All of that is difficult. But the emotional storytelling, the more older you get, the more mature you get, the more understanding of the world you get, you are a better emoter. I feel personally, if I can maintain my body, maintain the spirit and the enjoyment of performances, I think that I could easily dance for another 10 years. ((NATS)) So, dance has been unbelievable to me. It has brought me name, fame. It's brought us as a family together. I work with two of my children. It has taken me all over the world. And, you know, it's interesting. My parents were so proud of me, because my dad used to say, “You dance, but don't say you are my daughter,” you know. All of that changed with the honors and the opportunities that I have received in this country. So, if I hadn't come to the United States, I know from the bottom of my heart, I would have never danced, living in India. Whatever has happened to me was a result of us coming to this country. CLOSING ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect NEXT WEEK ((VO/NAT/SOT)) ((Banner)) Next week….. Free Pantry ((NATS I’m going to get a bar of this soap here too. I’m not going to be greedy.)) ((TYRON, HANDYMAN)) I come here and get my newspaper all the time. And I saw this box here one day and I looked in there and I said, oh, they got some food in here. I could use this, I could use that, you know, because I don't eat a lot. I work so much that I don't have time to gain weight. ((NATS)) ((TIFFANY CHILDRESS, VOLUNTEER & MEMBER, MOM’S CLUB)) We have homeless in this area, but we also have just working people who aren't able to make it to the end of a pay week, or families that just, they may just have hit hard times. ((NATS)) A lot of youth in the county, they stay at the library throughout the day. They have access to computers, air conditioning. The library does a lunch program, so they do free bag lunches for the children from 11 to 12. CLOSING ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect ((PKG)) FREE PRESS MATTERS ((NATS)) ((Pop-Up captions over BRoll)) Near the Turkish Embassy Washington, D.C. May 16, 2017 President Erdogan’s bodyguard attacks peaceful protesters “Those terrorists deserved to be beaten” “They should not be protesting our president” “They got what they asked for” While some people may turn away from the news We cover it reliably accurately objectively comprehensively wherever the news matters VOA A Free Press Matters CLOSING ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect BREAK SHOW ENDS