Forced Marriage in the U.S.:
A Screening of Knots and Discussion With Its Stars
An Unchained At Last Virtual Parallel Event
Commission on the Status of Women
16 March 2021 | 1:30 p.m. ET
REGISTRATION REQUIRED – INSTRUCTIONS HERE
As the United Nations launches the (virtual) 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women — the world’s largest annual gathering on women’s rights — we are launching a parallel event.
Forced and child marriage are human rights abuses that remain legal in most of the United States, impacting mostly women and girls. These abuses often mean a lifetime of rape, abuse and domestic servitude, and the loss of reproductive and financial rights.
Let’s hear directly from three U.S. forced marriage survivors whose stories are chronicled in the award-winning, feature-length documentary film Knots (including our founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss). We’ll watch the film together, then Mabel van Oranje of Girls Not Brides will moderate a discussion with the three survivors and the film producer about how eradicating forced and child marriage is necessary to achieve gender equality.
Moderator:
- Mabel van Oranje, Girls Not Brides
Speakers:
- Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last (forced marriage survivor featured in Knots)
- Kate Ryan Brewer, Filmmaker (director of Knots)
- Sara Tasneem, Activist (forced/child marriage survivor featured in Knots)
- Nina Van Harn, Activist (forced marriage survivor featured in Knots)
Sponsors:
- Unchained At Last
- NGO CSW/NY
About Knots
Knots: A Forced Marriage Story, written and directed by Kate Ryan Brewer, is a feature-length documentary film that examines the truth about forced marriage in the U.S. through the complicated experiences of three survivors, including our founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss.
This film includes discussion of rape and other forms of violence that may not be suitable for children.
About Unchained At Last
Unchained At Last is the only organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States through direct services and advocacy.
Unchained provides crucial legal and social services, always for free, to help women, girls and others in the U.S. to escape arranged/forced marriages. At the same time, Unchained pushes for social, policy and legal change; the organization started and now leads a growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level.
Unchained is an Organization in Special Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2017.