Unchained organized its first Chain-In on April 14, 2015, in Union Square, New York City, to protest forced marriage in the U.S. Some 60 survivors, advocates and supporters gathered with their arms chained and their mouths taped shut, to show the world what life looks like for the many thousands of girls and women in forced marriages right here in the U.S. (At this first Chain-In, protesters did not wear bridal gowns and veils.)
“End forced marriage now,” the protesters chanted (those whose mouths were not taped).
The protesters included forced-marriage survivors, advocates and supporters. A series of survivors and advocates addressed the crowd over a megaphone.
“I was told I had a choice,” Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained, told the protesters as she described her own abusive arranged marriage. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Jasvinder Sanghera, a forced marriage survivor who founded Karma Nirvana to help forced marriage victims in the UK, talked about her sister, who killed herself to escape a horrific forced marriage. And Kavitha Rajagopalan, adviser to the Unchained board, described the many arranged marriages in her own family.
Sometimes forced marriage is couched as “arranged marriage,” the speakers noted.
“Is it arranged or is it forced?” asked Lani Santo, executive director of Footsteps, which helps people leave the Orthodox Jewish community. Santo described the ordeal many Footsteppers have endured: teenagers who are given a half hour or less to “decide” whether to marry a prospective match.
Stephanie Baric, executive director of the AHA Foundation, noted that forced marriage happens in many cultures and religions. “People often dismissed forced marriage as ‘their culture,’ but it is OUR society,” Baric said.
Were you at the Chain-In? Either way, click here to see photos from it.
Forced marriage. It happens here. Help make it stop.
THANK YOU
Thank you to all the people who Chained-In on April 14, 2015, and to the speakers who engaged and enlightened them.
Thank you, too, to these people who made the Chain-In possible: David Cohen of Bungalow Entertainment, Heather Braun and Lauren Gottleib.
A special thank you to photographer Susan Landmann and filmmakers Lindsay Rothenberg and Trish Dalton, who generously donated their time and talents to capture the Chain-In on film.
ABOUT FORCED MARRIAGE IN THE U.S.
Right here in the U.S., girls and women sometimes are forced, pressured or tricked into marriage. A 2011 study by the Tahirih Justice Center found 3,000 known or suspected cases of girls in the U.S. as young as 15 who had been forced to marry just between 2009 and 2011.
Does that shock you? Perhaps that’s because the U.S. has lagged behind other nations in acknowledging and responding to this human rights violation.