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.
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LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR
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.