This was a good week for all of us who want to end child marriage in America.
Monday: We at Unchained At Last joined other advocates and child-marriage survivor Naila Amin in Hartford to testify in support of Connecticut‘s bill to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions.
Tuesday: The New York Senate voted unanimously to approve the bill we helped to write to decrease child marriage. The bill would end marriage before 17, a first step toward ending all child marriage.
Wednesday: We stood with Pennsylvania Rep. Perry Warren to announce he is going to introduce a bill to end all marriage before 18.
Thursday: We and our ally, the Tahirih Justice Center, testified in Annapolis in support of the bill we helped to write in Maryland to end all marriage before 18.
Sadly, also on Thursday the New Hampshire house of representatives voted against a bill to end child marriage.
Still, the progress continues: This coming Monday, the New Jersey senate will vote on the bill we helped to write, also to end all marriage before 18. If the senate approves the bill, and the governor approves it, New Jersey will become the first state to end all child marriage, without exceptions.
Let’s keep up this momentum! Please keep contacting your legislators and your governor to urge them to protect children from the human-rights abuse that is child marriage.
Child marriage, or marriage before 18, is a human-rights abuse. Yet it is legal in all 50 U.S. states, as Unchained’s founder and executive director, Fraidy Reiss, today explained on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. Listen to the full conversation here.
We at Unchained At Last held a Chain-In on February 14 in the New York Statehouse to protest child marriage and forced marriage in New York and across the US. We wore bridal gowns and veils, with our arms chained, to send a powerful message to legislators: End child marriage in New York.
The Chain-In garnered significant media attention, helping to achieve one of its goals: to raise awareness about what used to be a little-known human-rights abuse. Here are just a few of the media stories about the Chain-In:
Unchained is proud and grateful that the survivors, activists and allies who addressed the crowd at the the Chain-In/One Billion Rising event included:
Unchained also is proud and grateful that Girls Not Brides granted permission for protesters at the Chain-In/One Billion Rising event to sing “We Are Girls, Not Brides,” a haunting song written by girls in Zambia.
Read here about Unchained’s other Chain-Ins.
HUMAN-RIGHTS ABUSES
Child marriage – or marriage before age 18 – is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into or trapped within a marriage, because they cannot easily access legal and other resources.
Yet marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states, and many thousands of children were married in the U.S. in the last decade. In New York alone, more than 3,850 children as young as 14 were married between 2000 and 2010. And forced marriage happens to adults too, but the U.S. has long lagged behind other countries in acknowledging and responding to this human rights abuse.
The solution? Let’s start by reserving marriage, a serious legal contract, for those who have reached the age of majority. We Chained-In to grab the attention of policymakers and the public, and make sure lawmakers pass legislation to end child marriage.
Nearly a quarter-million children as young as 12 were married in the US between 2000 and 2010, mostly girls wed to adult men.
This is one of the shocking facts about child marriage in America that Unchained At Last’s Fraidy Reiss reveals in an op-ed article published today on the front page of the Washington Post’s Outlook section. As of yesterday and into today, the article was one of the five most-read articles on the Post website.
Many of the children wed between 2000 and 2010 were married to an adult significantly older than they, the article shows. Some were married at an age, or with a spousal age difference, that constitutes statutory rape under their state’s laws.
“Despite these alarming numbers,” the article explains, “and despite the documented consequences of early marriages, including negative effects on health and education and an increased likelihood of domestic violence, some state lawmakers have resisted passing legislation to end child marriage.”
Read the full article here.
Unchained started and now leads a growing national movement to end child marriage in America. Unchained is working to pass legislation, state by state, to eliminate all marriage before 18, with no exceptions. New Jersey is closest to passing such a bill, while similar bills are pending in Massachusetts and Maryland.
To build support for this legislation, Unchained writes op-eds like the one published today in the Washington Post; hosts Chain-Ins to protest forced and child marriage; gives regular media interviews; and presents at conferences and other venues.
You can help end child marriage in America:
This time the exciting news is in Maryland, where Del. Vanessa Atterbeary just introduced a bill that Unchained and its ally, Tahirih Justice Center, helped to write. The bill would end all child marriage in Maryland, without exceptions.
In New Jersey, a similar bill Unchained helped to write is scheduled for a hearing Monday afternoon before the senate judiciary committee. Unchained will testify strongly in support, of course.
In Massachusetts, a similar bill Unchained and Tahirih helped to write was introduced two weeks ago.
If you live in one of those states, email your legislators and your governor here to urge them to pass the pending bills. Regardless of where you live, see below for ways you can join the growing national movement Unchained started, and now leads, to end child marriage in America.
Child marriage is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, access a shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action.
Yet, while most states set 18 as the minimum marriage age, exceptions in every state allow those under 18 to marry. In Maryland, children age 16 or 17 can marry if they have parental consent or if “the woman” is pregnant or has given birth, and children age 15 can marry if they have parental consent and “the woman” is pregnant or has given birth. However, Maryland has no process to ensure parental “consent” is not actually parental “coercion,” nor any process to ensure no statutory rape has occurred.
Shockingly, some 3,130 children were married in Maryland between 2000 and 2014 – mostly girls wed to adult men. Further, Maryland’s data shows more than five children “under 15” were married in that time period, without specifying just how young they were or how that could have happened, when marriage before 15 is illegal.
Unchained is working state by state to write, introduce and pass laws to eliminate all marriage before 18, with no exceptions. In Maryland, Del. Atterbeary introduced a bill to that effect last year, but the bill did not get enough support, and it died. Now Del. Atterbeary has reintroduced the bill as HB799.
Wherever you live, you can help end child marriage in America:
Both faced a forced marriage when they were teenagers. Both were shunned by their families when they rejected the marriage. Both women later founded nonprofit organizations to help other women and girls escape forced marriages.
One of the women is Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s founder and executive director. The other is one of her role models, Jasvinder Sanghera, founder and CEO of Karma Nirvana in the UK.
Fraidy and Jasvinder share their surprisingly similar stories – from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean – in the latest episode of BBC’s The Conversation.
“I … was filled with this tremendous sense of gratitude,” Fraidy says of the day she realized she had survived her ordeal and rebuilt her life, and decided to found Unchained. “I thought, ‘Well, I made it. So many women and girls are still back where I was. How can I help them?'”
Hear the full episode here.
We just moved another step closer to ending child marriage in America.
Massachusetts Rep. Kay Khan and Sen. Harriette Chandler today introduced legislation we at Unchained At Last helped to write, similar to legislation we’ve written in other states. If you live in Massachusetts, email your legislators and the governor here to urge them to pass HD2205/SD974. If you live outside of Massachusetts, see below for ways you can help.
Child marriage is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, access a shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action.
Yet, while most states set 18 as the minimum marriage age, exceptions in every state allow those under 18 to marry. In Massachusetts, a court can approve the marriage of a child of any age, with the parents’ consent. As a result, nearly 1,200 children as young as 14 were married in Massachusetts between 2000 and 2014 – and 84 percent of them were girls wed to adult men.
Unchained has helped to write legislation in several states to end child marriage. In Massachusetts, HD2205/SD974 would eliminate all marriage before 18, with no exceptions. A companion bill, HD2263/SD975, would protect children at risk of being taken to another jurisdiction for a forced marriage.
Wherever you live, you can help end child marriage in America:
Do you have plans yet for September 10? How about a dinner cruise aboard a private yacht in the Hudson River, complete with an open bar, a DJ and a sunset over New York and New Jersey landmarks – all to benefit women fleeing forced marriages?
SAVE THE DATE!
Dinner on the River
September 10, 2017
5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Embarking/disembarking in Weehawken, NJ
More details coming soon …
Once again, we at Unchained At Last are going to Chain-In to send a strong message to legislators: Stop child marriage.
Like before, we will wear bridal gowns and veils, chain our arms and tape our mouths. This time, we’ll Chain-In in Albany, on February 14. Will you join us?
Child marriage is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into or trapped within a marriage, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, access a shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action.
Yet marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states, and tens of thousands of children were married in the U.S. in the last decade. In New York, some 3,850 children as young as 14 were married between 2000 and 2010 – almost all of them girls wed to adult men.
Unchained has helped to write legislation in several states to end marriage before 18. One of those bills is advancing in New Jersey, but two of those bills – in New York and Maryland – died last year because legislators did not move on them.
New York Asw. Amy Paulin is about to re-introduce the bill to end child marriage in New York. Let’s show her our support. Let’s Chain-In to grab New York legislators’ attention and make sure they know we want them to pass the bill this time around.
Here’s what Unchained accomplished in 2016, under the leadership of founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss:
~ By year’s end, Unchained has helped or is helping more than 270 women and girls.
~ Fraidy is featured in the New York Daily News, on PBS NewsHour and Al Jazeera America, and by many other television, radio and print news outlets.
~ The bill Unchained helped to write to end child marriage advances in New Jersey, passing in the Assembly with not a single “no” vote – thanks to Unchained’s tireless advocacy. (The bills in New York and Maryland do not get enough support, and they die.)
~ Some 35 attorneys attend Unchained’s annual CLE course on family law, presented in partnership with Rutgers Institute for Professional Education. The course is free for attorneys who commit to representing an Unchained client pro bono.
~ More than 10,000 emails are sent as part of Unchained’s email campaign to legislators and governors, urging them to end child marriage.
~ Unchained hosts a Chain-In in Newark. Some 35 people wear bridal gowns and veils, chain their arms and tape their mouths to protest forced and child marriage.
~ Unchained hires its second staffer, a part-time Social Worker, and moves into a professional office (and out of the executive director’s home).
~ Fraidy is invited to speak about child marriage at a United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60) side event.
~ Fraidy is nominated for the prestigious DVF People’s Voice Award.
