Teen-Adult Weddings Draw More Criticism

By MATT LAIT

Sept. 11, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The director of the state Department of Social Services called on Orange County officials Tuesday to abandon the practice of helping pregnant adolescents under their protection to marry the adult men who had sex with them.

“I don’t know how we accept these relationships under any condition,” Director Eloise Anderson said in an interview. “We need to stop that. We should not allow this abuse. Something is going on down there [in Orange County] that I just don’t understand.”

Anderson, known as an outspoken department head, criticized the handling of such cases by Orange County social workers and Juvenile Court judges. She said the girls should be separated from the men who impregnated them, receive intensive counseling and be encouraged to give their babies up for adoption.

“I don’t believe that Orange County has paid attention to the children’s interests--both the [teenage] mother and the infant,” Anderson said. “They’ve gone way over the line. . . .”

Girls under the age of 18 are not mature enough emotionally or “cognitively” to decide whether or not to become spouses and parents, she said, and social workers and the courts should not put them in the position of making such decisions.

Furthermore, she said, the men should be prosecuted for unlawful sex with a minor or child abuse, depending on the circumstances. An adult who has sex with a minor aged 13 or younger commits a felony offense that counts under the state’s tough three-strikes law, while sexual relations between an adult and someone aged 14 to 17 can be either a felony or misdemeanor.

“We should draw the line so hard in the sand that if anyone steps over it, he gets his foot cut off,” said Anderson, who added that she was unaware of any other county in the state resorting to marriage as a solution to the problem of teenage pregnancies caused by adult men.

California has the nation’s highest teenage pregnancy rate, and studies have found that adult men are responsible two-thirds of the time. State officials have said that these pregnancies cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, since the underage mothers seldom complete their education and often end up on welfare. Furthermore, their offspring are often sickly and require more medical attention.

Larry M. Leaman, director of the Orange County Social Services Agency, has said that his agency has “accommodated” some such marriages in the belief that they were preferable to placing the girls and their unborn children in foster homes.

Leaman, who was not available for comment Tuesday, has said the practice of marrying teenagers to adults is under review.

Over the last two years, about 15 girls have been allowed to marry or resume living with the adults who had fathered their children or impregnated them, Leaman said. In one case in July, a pregnant 13-year-old girl was given court permission to marry her 20-year-old boyfriend.

Anderson said social workers, police and prosecutors need to treat such situations as crimes in which the men are prosecuted either for child abuse or statutory rape.

“A 13-year-old being seduced, manipulated or forced into a sexual relationship is rape to me,” Anderson said.

But instead of putting the man in prison, Anderson said he should be made responsible for the newborn he fathered and required to provide for the infant, if the child is not put up for adoption. If he fails to meet his responsibilities, he should be incarcerated, she suggested.

“We should be shifting the burden to him,” she said. “She has got to be removed from child-rearing, because she has not finished being reared herself.”

Anderson acknowledged that some of her views are unconventional and do not always reflect the official stance of her department. However, she said something must be done in Orange County and elsewhere to bring about societal changes so that such behavior is not tolerated.

She said her department will continue to monitor Orange County’s situation and provide “guidance” for social workers dealing with these matters. Furthermore, she said her agency will gather information on teenage pregnancies from throughout the nation to determine if “we need to rethink our laws.”

“We need to make sound policy decisions and not go on emotion,” she added.

Anderson, who was appointed to her post by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1992, oversees a department with 4,500 employees and a budget of $16 billion and sets state policy for welfare reform and child welfare services. Although she has no authority to order that Orange County halt the practice of accommodating marriages between pregnant teenagers and their adult sex partners, she said it was a strong recommendation.

Officials of the Orange County Social Services Agency have created a special task force to study the problem. According to the task force’s confidential draft report, social workers should stop recommending to Juvenile Court judges that pregnant adolescent girls be allowed to marry adult men.

The report recommends that those decisions be made solely by the courts. The task force, however, made no judgment on whether the marriages are an appropriate solution to what Leaman has called “an impossible social dilemma.”

Allowing the girls to marry, instead of treating them as victims of child abuse and rape, has sparked tremendous debate among social workers, law enforcement officers and prosecutors.

Prosecutors say they are willing--and have received money from the governor--to pursue statutory rape cases in court, but don’t get many cases referred to them by police. Police say they have arrested men on suspicion of statutory rape in the past only to have social workers and the courts reunite the couples. Social workers complain that they now encounter police who are reluctant to help them take minors who have sex with adults into protective custody.

“It’s an important discussion,” Anderson said, “and it needs to occur.”

Orange County’s handling of the cases has attracted national and international attention from more than a dozen high-profile print and broadcast news organizations, Leaman said. His secretary said the volume of calls has been so heavy that agency officials have requested that reporters fax written questions so officials may respond more efficiently.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Young Raising Young

In the five-year period, 1989-93--the most recent data available--the total number of births to young mothers in Orange County began to decline. Births to mothers 10-19 years old:

1993: 4,612

1992: 4,781

1991: 4,817

1990: 4,745

1989: 4,152

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Early Care

Young mothers are less likely to begin prenatal care early in pregnancy and have a higher incidence of low birth-weight deliveries than their older peers. Comparisons for 1993, latest information available:

First Trimester Prenatal Care

Mother’s age: %

10-14 years: 48

15-17: 59

18-19: 64

20-24: 73

25-29: 82

30 and older: 86

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Low Birth-Weight Deliveries

Mother’s age: Rate*

10-14 years: 108.43