A YOUNG traveller wife has revealed the truth about divorce in her community.
Zoey Pon, 20, wed her husband at just 18 years old, and has recently given birth to her first child, Tom.
The proud traveller often shares insights into life in her community via videos posted to her TikTok channel @doll20212021 and recently shared whether travellers are allowed to get divorced.
Zoey revealed that divorce doesn’t really happen, with only “about 15%” of traveller women getting divorced.
“It’s very, very rare for a traveller to get divorced”, she said.
Zoey revealed that if a traveller decides they are no longer happy with their husband, they move back in with their mum and dad, and live with them until their marital problems have been “sorted out”.
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“And even if they don’t sort things out, they’ll just stay at home and not get a divorce”, she said.
“It’s not like non-travellers where they get married now and next month they’re getting divorced and then getting married again”, she said.
In a previous video, Zoey hit back at trolls who say she is too young to have a husband.
The traveller revealed that she had to keep her boyfriend a secret when she was a teenager, as girls in the travelling community are not allowed to be in relationships.
Then, when she was 17, her boyfriend asked her parents if he could marry her.
Her parents agreed to the union, and just two weeks later, Zoey was married.
“I know what you’re all going to say, ‘you got married at 18 years of age, that’s very young’, but in my culture, it’s actually not young”, she revealed in a TikTok video.
She revealed that at her age, it is not uncommon for a woman to already have three or four children.
“I think I got married at a good age, because I wasn’t too young, and I wasn’t too old”, she said.
In another video, Zoey revealed a number of things traveller girls aren’t allowed to do before they get married.
Facts on gypsy and traveller communities
Typically, gypsies is a term used to describe Romani people who migrated to Europe from India while traveller refers to a person with either Irish, Scottish or English heritage.
Around 300,000 Gypsy, Roma and Irish travellers are thought to live in the UK.
All three groups come from nomadic ways of life, however, as it is increasingly difficult to find land to live on, many are moving into permanent housing.
They place high value on family life and often live close together even after reaching adult years and getting married.
Often the men are the breadwinners of the family while the women stay home.
While many English gypsy girls are allowed to drink alcohol and go on holiday with their friends before they get married, their Irish counterparts are not.
Sharing an insight into her life as an Irish traveller on TikTok, Zoey said: “Before we get married, we aren’t allowed to drink, and we’re not allowed to smoke.”
Even though she is now married, she said there is no way she would ever smoke as it’s “disgusting”.
Another thing Zoey was not allowed to do growing up was mix with people from outside the traveller community.
“You can mix with them in school, but outside school you’re not allowed,” she said.
When Zoey was younger, she said she would never even bother asking her parents if she could have a sleepover at a non-traveller’s house, as she knew the answer would be no.
“That would never happen in a million years,” she said.
