Panel Seeks to Monitor Teenage Marriages

A commission that oversees Juvenile Court matters should be notified if Orange County social workers accommodate any more marriages of adolescent girls under their protection to the adult men who have impregnated them, the committee’s chairwoman said Tuesday.

Cindy Stokke, the chairwoman of the county’s Juvenile Justice Commission, said she plans to push for adoption of policies and procedures that would enable the commission to monitor cases when any steps are taken by the social service agency to facilitate the unions of underage girls and adults.

“That’s a recommendation that I will personally make. We need to make sure we are told about these cases,” Stokke said. “We need to make sure that the system works on behalf on the minors.”

At an upcoming meeting of the 15-member commission, Stokke said, she plans to raise the issue of Orange County social workers having helped at least 15 young girls over the last two years marry or continue living with their adult male sex partners instead of treating them as victims of child abuse or statutory rape.

The practice, which was first disclosed Sunday in The Times, has stirred debate among social workers, police and prosecutors over how best to deal with young girls and adult men who have children together.

In one case six weeks ago, a pregnant 13-year-old Anaheim girl was given court approval to marry her 20-year-old boyfriend.

Although Juvenile Court judges, not social workers, have the ultimate authority to allow the marriages, the recommendations of social workers carry tremendous weight.

The Orange County Social Services Agency can take actions including recommending to judges that a pregnant underage girl be married to the father of her child, or that the judge rule that the girl is no longer a dependent of the court.

Some critics of the marriages say the girls and their babies should be placed in foster homes and the men prosecuted on criminal charges--one of the key elements of an ongoing campaign launched by Gov. Pete Wilson to reduce teenage pregnancies in California.

Wilson, who has allocated $8 million for more vigorous prosecutions of statutory rape cases, has said through a spokesman that he is concerned about the practice in Orange County.

Stokke said the committee took an informal look at the case involving the 13-year-old when members heard about the arrangement, but issued no official findings. She said the committee was not aware of the scope of the problem until the published reports.

She added that the committee would not get involved in the decision-making process, but would like to keep track of the cases as they make their way through the Juvenile Court process. She said she will ask that the commission be notified by the Social Services Agency or the courts as such cases surface.

“We should be a check on the system to make sure it is working properly,” she said. “Our basic concern is the children who are the wards and dependents of the county.”

Larry Leaman, the director of the Social Services Agency, on Tuesday welcomed Stokke’s desire to become involved in resolving the broader policy issue his agency faces.

Leaman has said that his workers are often caught in an ethical and social bind when they try to evaluate what is best for the minors in these types of cases.

Some of the factors that have led to recommendations that underage girls marry or continue living with their adult sex partners include: consent from the minor’s parents, the minor’s desire to continue the relationship and the county’s concern over breaking up a potentially functioning family unit.

Leaman said his agency has launched an internal investigation, and is trying to determine whether there should be an overall policy outlining how social workers should handle these cases.

Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel, who presides over the juvenile courts, declined to discuss the issue, saying he did not want to appear to prejudge similar cases in the future.

County CEO Jan Mittermeier said: “Mr. Leaman’s agency is working through a very difficult, sensitive issue. What may seem to be clearly right in one moment takes on a different look as the next piece of information surfaces. There is no easy answer here.”

According to state statistics, adults are responsible for two-thirds of all teenage pregnancies in California. It seems unlikely that Orange County is the only county that is confronting the issue of underage marriages.

Officials from Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino have said they are unaware of any such arrangements being made for girls as young as 13 or 14, but acknowledged that they would not be surprised if such unions occur for girls 16 or 17 years of age, especially if the disparity in age with the adult is only a few years.