Shocking video has emerged showing the moment a 65-year-old man and his ‘child bride’ posed for wedding pictures in New York.
The video was shot in Times Square and shows the pensioner hugging a 12-year-old girl and posing for photographs as horrified passers-by look on, reports the Mirror.
Some reacted in disbelief as the couple posed for the shots, but others decided to actually step in.
One woman asked the girl if she was okay, but before the schoolgirl could reply, the elderly man said it was fine as he had her parents’ permission.
The woman replied to him: “What are you doing with someone her age, where is her mum?”
Another man in his twenties also intervened saying:
This is not right, you know this isn’t right. You can not do this to a little girl. You’re a sick fucking pervert.
In another scene, a man took her away and said he was going to take her to the police, while the elderly man argued that everything was perfectly fine.
Many people will be shocked to find out that in the state of Massachusetts, the marriage would have been perfectly legal as girls can marry aged 12 with their parents’ consent.
However, this version in NYC was just a stunt set up by Coby Persin for his YouTube channel.
He said he decided to make the video after seeing a story about a similar social experiment in which a child bride got married in Lebanon.
The videos are part of a campaign to highlight the plight of thousands of young girls in Lebanon, Syria and around the world who are forced into marriage.
Campaigner Maya Ammar said:
The scene was supposed to seem shocking because the practice itself is shocking.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, more than 1.2 billion girls will be forced into child marriage by 2050.
