A woman from California has described how she was sold as a bride at the age of 12 to pay off a gambling debt. Kate Yang believes that she was a “child slave”, who was subjected to rape and beatings at the hands of her husband and his complicit family.

She is now advocating for legal change across the United States, a country where only 15 out of 50 states in the country prohibit child marriage. Kate grew up as part of the Hmong community, an ethnic group that traces its origin in China and is common across South East Asia. Growing up in the community was like a “cult”, Kate believes where girls only purpose is to be sold for financial gain.

She told Firstpost of the culture: “A husband can have more than one wife, but if you’re born a daughter, you’re pretty much useless.

“The only purpose for you is to be sold off for a high dowry, so if you’re a son, you carry the last name, and so basically living in that community, it’s very normal to see child brides.

“It also happens in America, and the communities where this usually happens are not always the rich communities; It’s always the poor communities.”

Kate worried about the prospect of becoming a child bride from an early age.

She said: “At the age of 4, you know it’s so traumatic. I have fear in my whole life that if I grow up to be a woman that cannot produce a son, then I will be cursed, you know? So I have already had all this fear that’s happening in my life from a very young age

“Who am I going to be sold off to? Are they going to sexually abuse me? Am I going to lose all my rights as a female?

“Am I going to be raped and beat up all the time and tossed around like a piece of trash like you hear so many traumatic stories.”

Kate was sold for just $6,000 after her aunty accumulated gambling debts.

She then became the “possession” of her husband’s family, a practice common in the community where widows are obliged to marry their husband’s brother, even if he already has a wife, to ensure that they stay within the family.

Kate was beaten regularly, with her husband once causing a misacarriage from a violent outburst.

She added: “He raped me, beat me, and verbally and mentally abused me. He is disgusting in his mind.

“He’ll beat me over something so stupid. He’ll beat me, and then he’ll feel bad after beating me. He would apologise if I didn’t accept his apology right there, I would get another beating.

“He’ll start by smashing the bedroom walls or throwing things to let his parents know that we’re fighting. One time when his mother got to know what was happening, she rationalised it, telling me, ’this is to know your place’.”

Having escaped the marriage, Kate is campaigning for a change in the law to ban child marriage, with 4 US states currently having no minimum age for marriage, according to Equality Now.

The group believes that nearly 300,000 children were married in the US between 2000 and 2018, the vast majority of whom were girls wed to adult men.