Seven girls—ages eleven to fourteen, six of them visibly pregnant—stood on the train platform at Boston's South Station on September 22, 1920, being led by two men and three women toward a train bound for "St. Mary's Home for Wayward Girls" in upstate New York
—when suddenly a woman in the crowd, Mrs. Catherine Walsh, age fifty-two, had shouted "THOSE ARE CHILDREN! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING THEM?"—and within seconds, over thirty women on the platform had formed a human chain blocking the train doors.
and Mrs. Walsh had confronted the group's leaders: "Why are pregnant children being taken to New York?"—and one of the women had answered "These girls are unwed mothers going to a home for rehabilitation"
—but Mrs. Walsh had walked up to the girls and asked directly "Are you married?"—and five of the six pregnant girls had whispered "Yes" and shown wedding rings, and one girl, age eleven, had sobbed "They told my parents I have to go there after my baby comes to learn to be a good mother, but I heard they take the babies"
—and Mrs. Walsh had shouted to the crowd "THESE ARE CHILD BRIDES BEING TRAFFICKED! SOMEONE CALL POLICE!"—and the thirty women had refused to move from the train doors while Mrs. Walsh had kept the group there until police arrived—
and investigation revealed the "home" was actually a facility where child mothers were separated from their babies (adopted out for fees), then kept as unpaid labor for years—and all seven girls were taken into protective custody, their "husbands"
(ranging in age from thirty-two to forty-seven) were arrested, and the "St. Mary's Home" was raided, revealing forty-three child mothers being held there—and Mrs. Walsh and the thirty women who'd formed the human chain were credited with exposing a multi-state child trafficking operation.
The youngest girl, age eleven, lived until 2005, dying at age ninety-six. Before her death, she reflected: "I was eleven and pregnant, being taken to a train that would separate me from my baby.
A stranger on the platform saw us—seven pregnant children being led away—and shouted 'Those are children!' Within seconds, thirty women formed a human chain blocking the train.
They wouldn't move until police came. That human chain of strangers saved seven of us and led to forty-three more girls being rescued. One woman's shout, thirty women's bodies blocking a train, changed everything.
Author Unknown
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