You think coercive marriages aren’t a problem for women in the US? Think again.
That was the message that PRI’s The World sent yesterday, with a segment on arranged/forced marriage that aired on more than 300 stations across the US and Canada. The segment featured Unchained At Last’s founder and executive director, Fraidy Reiss, as well as an Unchained client who gave only her first name, Syeda.
Fraidy and Syeda talked with host Marco Werman about their personal experiences: Each woman was pressured into marriage as a teenager — Fraidy in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, and Syeda in a Muslim community in Pakistan. And each woman was shunned by her family when she left her abusive arranged marriage.
The two women’s friendship developed after Syeda approached Unchained, the nonprofit Fraidy founded, and asked for help ending her marriage and rebuilding her life.
“I just feel the same passion Fraidy has to just put a smile on some woman’s face,” Syeda said at the conclusion of the interview, with a surprise announcement that she wants to join Unchained’s almost all-volunteer staff. “I think I would like to spend the rest of my life doing that.”
Click here to listen to the PRI’s The World segment.
About Syeda
Syeda was forced into marriage at age 16 in Pakistan. She went along with the marriage to her first cousin, a stranger to her, only after her father told her that was the only way she’d be allowed to attend college.
After her wedding, Syeda continued to live with her own parents, without her husband, and the family moved to the US. But when she was 25, her husband followed her to the US and moved in with her and her family — and he subjected her to unspeakable physical and sexual abuse. He also demanded that Syeda move with him back to Pakistan.
Syeda endured seven weeks of her husband’s abuse before her family threw her out of the house, because of her refusal to return with her husband to Pakistan. Syeda fled to a shelter.
Despite what she has been through, Syeda has taken control of her life. She is a college student, close to graduating with a bachelor’s degree, and she has a job. She managed to move out of the shelter after only a brief stay, and she has her own apartment. She owns her own car. She speaks English fluently.
Unchained now is working with Syeda to help her get divorced and end, forever, her forced marriage.
