New Jersey is now the fourth state where legislation is pending to end child marriage, thanks to the work of Unchained and its allies.
Click here and here to read two of the many news media articles about this that have been published recently, and expect soon to see Unchained interviewed on Al Jazeera America television and on NPR radio.
Currently, child marriage is legal in all 50 states – and children in the US have been marrying at an alarming rate, as Unchained revealed in October in an op-ed in the New York Times. In New Jersey alone, 3,499 children as young as 10 were married between 1995 and 2012, mostly minor girls married to adult men.
Since that op-ed was published, legislators in four states have worked with Unchained and its allies to introduce legislation to end child marriage:
Unchained and its allies’ work to end child marriage in every US state continues to yield results. First it was New York, then Virginia; now the progress is in Maryland, where a bill has been introduced to eliminate two dangerous exceptions to Maryland’s minimum marriage age that currently allow children as young as 15 to wed.
Since 2000, more than 3,000 child marriages have occurred in Maryland, including nearly 150 that involved children age 15 or even younger. Some 85% of the children married were girls.
Unchained, in partnership with Tahirih Justice Center, worked with Del. Vanessa Atterbeary to draft the bill (HB0911), and both organizations will testify in support March 3 in Maryland. You can show your support – in Maryland and across the US – by signing the petition.
In New York, the bill Asw. Amy Paulin introduced to end child marriage (A8563) remains pending; Unchained is working with Sanctuary for Families to get it passed. In Virginia, due to Tahirih’s hard work, a bill (S415) is advancing in the legislature. In New Jersey, expect to hear an announcement soon about legislation introduced.
NTN24 aired an interview with Unchained At Last about child marriage. If you speak Spanish, view the interview here.
The Pixel Project kicked off its 2016 Inspirational Interview series with an interview with Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s founder and executive director.
“I plan to keep telling my story and keep ‘shouting from the rooftops,'” Reiss said in the interview. “I hope other survivors will continue to do the same, until people no longer assume forced marriage does not happen in the United States.”
Kilpatrick Townsend’s Women’s Initiative and Unchained At Last invite you to a screening of the film DIFRET, followed by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.
Date: March 3, 2016
Screening: 5:00 p.m.
Cocktails: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Kilpatrick Townsend
xxxxxxxxx1114 Avenue of the Americas
xxxxxxxxx21st Floor
xxxxxxxxxNew York, NY 10036
RSVP: Click here
Donation cards will be available at the event, to benefit Unchained. If you cannot attend, please donate here.
From executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt, the award-winning drama DIFRET is based on the true story of 14-year-old Hirut, who is abducted in her Ethiopian village’s tradition of kidnapping girls for marriage. She fights back, accidentally killing her captor and intended husband. Local law demands a death sentence for Hirut, but Meaza, a tough lawyer from a women’s legal-aid practice, steps in to fight for Hirut and against a deeply rooted tradition.
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is an international law firm with 18 offices and some 550 attorneys that is particularly well known for its intellectual-property practice. The firm, which has won numerous awards for community service, has shown exceptional generosity to Unchained: A team of Kilpatrick Townsend attorneys recently represented an Unchained client pro bono through her divorce proceeding, as she fled an arranged marriage.
The Kilpatrick Townsend Women’s Initiative is focused on driving the growth of the firm’s business, building the firm’s talent pipeline and assuring the inclusion of women at the firm. Unchained is deeply grateful to the Kilpatrick Townsend Women’s Initiative for hosting this film-and-fundraising event to benefit Unchained.
Some 325 people joined Junior Woman’s Club of Westfield and Unchained At Last tonight at Winter Blast, featuring New Jersey’s most beloved bar band, The Nerds. The crowd enjoyed the open bar, food, games of chance and raffles – including one lucky guy who won the chance to sing with The Nerds during the final set.
Winter Blast was hosted by the talented and hardworking ladies of the Junior Woman’s Club of Westfield to benefit Unchained At Last’s clients: brave women and girls who are fleeing forced marriages in the US.
Questions? Email kathleenswalker@gmail.com.
Most US states set 18 as the minimum marriage age, but every US state allows exceptions under which children can marry, Unchained’s executive director explained today on public radio.
Fraidy Reiss made the comment in an interview with The Takeaway about child marriage that aired today on Public Radio International.
Little research has been done on child marriage in the US. Unchained’s research to date has found that thousands of children – as young as age 10 – have been married recently in the US. Most were girls, and most were wed to adult men, often with age differences that are considered statutory rape under state law.
“We need to put a stop to this,” Reiss said in the interview. “Of course, ending those exceptions that allow children to get married, that’s a no-brainer.”
Unchained has written legislation to eliminate the exceptions to the minimum marriage age and end child marriage. The legislation has been introduced in New York as A8563 (thanks to Asw. Amy Paulin) and is soon to be introduced in New Jersey.
Click here to listen to the full interview: “The Child Bride Next Door: Inside America’s Forced Marriage Problem“
Click here to learn more about Unchained’s efforts to end child marriage in the US
Thanks to your support, Unchained At Last has seen extraordinary successes this year. Here’s what you have helped Unchained to achieve in 2015:
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Our number of clients has surged past the 200 mark. That’s more than 200 brave women and girls to whom we have provided – or are providing – crucial legal and social services, to help them flee or resist an arranged/forced marriage.
Syeda is one of those women: forced into marriage in Pakistan at age 16, and then brought to the US and subjected to unspeakable physical and sexual abuse before she turned to us for help. Click HERE to learn more about the direct client services we offer women and girls like Syeda, which range from planning high-stakes international escapes for women and girls taken overseas for a forced marriage to psychotherapy, career counseling and financial coaching.
In June, we hosted our first client outing: a trip to Six Flags Great Adventure and Safari, to give the brave women and girls a break from the trauma they are enduring as they flee forced marriages. All told, 28 people (and one puppy) joined the trip, which was sponsored by the Good People Fund.
We broke the news in October, through an op-ed published in the New York Times, that America has a serious child-marriage problem. We revealed that child marriage is legal in every US state, and that at least thousands of children, as young as 10, were married recently in the US.
As a result of our op-ed, Asw. Amy Paulin introduced legislation in New York to end child marriage (A8563). Additionally, we are working with legislators in New Jersey who have promised to introduce our bill there early next year, after New Jersey’s new legislative session begins, and we are looking at other states as well.
Click here to learn more about how you can get involved to help end forced marriage in the US.
We made extraordinary gains in raising national awareness about forced marriage. Here are some of the ways we made that happen:
~ A groundbreaking meeting with the White House Council on Women and Girls and key federal agencies in March, organized by the Tahirih Justice Center, to talk about developing a national policy on forced marriage.
~ A historic Chain-In in New York City in April, at which some 60 people chained their arms and taped their mouths to protest forced marriage.
~ Some 20 media interviews, including one that led to a glowing New York Times story; appearances on NPR’s All Things Considered and PRI’s The World; plus an op-ed published in the New York Times.
~ Some 30 presentations to more than 1,300 people at at houses of worship, universities and other venues. At one of those presentations, at a conference at Rutgers Law School, keynote speaker Gloria Steinem commended Unchained.
~ Two training courses on family law, with a focus on forced marriage (given in partnership with Rutgers Institute for Professional Education) to a combined 100 lawyers, many who are now on Unchained’s team of Pro Bono Attorneys.
Our hard work has not gone unnoticed. Here are some of the awards and honors earned this year:
~ The Pixel Project named Unchained’s founder and executive director, Fraidy Reiss, one of 16 female role models around the world who are fighting to end violence against women in their communities.
~ The South Asian Bar Association of New Jersey gave Unchained its Public Interest Award.
~ Soroptimist International of Suburban Essex gave Reiss its Ruby Award: For Women Helping Women.
So it’s been an exciting year at Unchained, and 2016 promises to be even more exciting. With your continued support, we will continue working on everything you just read, and we also have big plans, including:
LEGISLATION TO END CHILD MARRIAGE: Look out for updates on our advocacy efforts, which we plan to expand beyond New York.
UNCHAINED CLUB: An opportunity for high school and college students across America to join the movement to end forced marriage in the US.
WINTER BLAST: A fundraiser featuring The Nerds, on January 29, 2016, in Kenilworth, NJ. Open bar, food, raffles – plus you can win the chance to sing with The Nerds during the final set! Hosted by the Junior Woman’s Club of Westfield, to benefit Unchained.
You can help Unchained continue doing its important work to help women and girls affected by arranged/forced marriage. Here’s how your donation could impact the life of a girl or woman:
$50 buys a week’s worth of groceries for a girl who has fled a forced marriage
$100 means a winter coat for a woman who escaped a forced marriage without any of her personal belongings
$250 covers court fees so a woman can file for divorce and end an unwanted marriage
$500 pays for a mover to help a woman move away from an abusive arranged marriage and into her own home
$1,000 gives medical care to a forced-marriage survivor who is not eligible for Medicaid
$1,500 buys a last-minute plane ticket back to the US for a girl taken overseas to be forced into marriage
$5,000 provides a custody evaluation to save a woman from losing custody of her children as she flees a forced marriage
Unchained At Last envisions a world where every woman is free to choose whether, when and whom to marry, and whether to get divorced. Together we can achieve that vision.
The Pixel Project today named Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s founder and executive director, as one of 16 female role models fighting to end violence against women.
“Many of these outstanding women and girls have shown that it is possible to transform personal pain that came out of facing gender-based violence, into positive action to stop violence against women, empower themselves and to show other survivors that it is possible to move forward with dignity and happiness,” according to Pixel Project.
See the full list of 2015 role models, and their details, by clicking here.
