We showed up expecting our founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss, to win one of seven $7,500 prizes for our work to end child marriage.
Surprise! She won the top Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award of $50,000. The Russ Berrie awards, given each year at Ramapo College in New Jersey, honor individuals who perform extraordinary community service or unusual acts of heroism in New Jersey and those who have made a significant difference to the well-being of society.
Did you catch our founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss, on A&E last night? Journalist Elizabeth Vargas interviewed Fraidy about forced and child marriage in the United States, while four American child marriage survivors shared their heartbreaking stories — all for a two-hour segment titled “I Was A Child Bride: The Untold Story.”
Raising awareness through media interviews is just one of the strategies we at Unchained use as we lead a growing national movement to end forced and child marriage in the U.S. through direct services and advocacy.
Even if Massachusetts legislators somehow missed the group of chained brides singing, chanting and marching through the statehouse to the governor’s office today to protest forced and child marriage, they could not have missed the extensive coverage of our Chain-In in outlets including:
Our message to legislators was clear: It’s time to pass H1478/S24 and make Massachusetts the third U.S. state – after Delaware and New Jersey – to end child marriage. Eleven other states have similar legislation pending.
We chanted, “Bill S24: child marriage, there’s the door!” and “1-4-7-8, girls in MA cannot wait!” to make our voices heard about child marriage, and then marched to Gov. Charlie Baker’s office while singing, “We Are Girls, Not Brides,” a haunting song written by a group of girls in Zambia.
We at Unchained At Last lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in the United States by eliminating the legal loopholes in all 50 states and at the federal level that allow, and even encourage, child marriage. Seventeen states, including Massachusetts, do not specify any minimum age for marriage.
Read more here about Chain-Ins, the powerful form of peaceful protest that we invented to raise awareness of forced and child marriage in the United States.
We packed the Church Center of the United Nations on Wednesday for our second United Nations parallel event: they were turning people away at the door. We had a lively conversation about the Successes and Setbacks in Eradicating Child Marriage Globally, moderated by Mabel van Oranje of Girls Not Brides.
You can watch segments of the panel on our Facebook page.
The event coincided with the third day of the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the U.N. It was our second U.N. parallel event since we were granted special consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council and was co-sponsored by Breakthrough, Zonta International, Freely In Hope and NGO CSW.
Besides Mabel, the event’s speakers included:
And the event’s respondents included:
Happy International Women’s Day.
To celebrate, Chelsea Clinton and our Fraidy Reiss co-authored an op-ed in Refinery29 calling out legislators and even some feminists for their refusal to end child marriage. Check it out.
We’re grateful to count Chelsea as an ally in our fight against child marriage in the U.S.
Marriage before 18 remains legal in 48 U.S. states. Our groundbreaking research revealed that an estimated quarter-million children, at least as young as 12, were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. Almost all were girls married to adult men.
We are working to pass legislation in every state to eliminate the exceptions that allow children to marry. We already helped to pass legislation in New Jersey and Delaware and are working to help pass bills pending in another 12 states.
Once again, we at Unchained At Last are going to Chain-In to protest child marriage in the United States. This time we’re headed to Boston.
We’ll gather on the third floor State House balcony outside of the House chamber wearing bridal gowns and veils, with our arms chained and mouths taped. We’ll send a strong message to legislators: Pass H1478/S24, the bill to end child marriage in Massachusetts.
Will you join us?
March 27 | 10:00 a.m.
Massachusetts State House House Chamber Balcony (3rd Floor)
24 Beacon St., Boston
Unchained provides the gowns, veils, chains and tape
Speakers include:
We lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in America by eliminating the legal loopholes in all 50 states and at the federal level that allow, and even encourage, child marriage. Seventeen states, including Massachusetts, do not specify any minimum age for marriage.
In Massachusetts, children of any age under 18 can marry with parental “consent,” which is often parental “coercion,” and judicial approval. The judicial review process does not protect children: It does not specify any criteria a judge must consider before approving the marriage of a child. Further, in Unchained’s experience, a child who is forced to marry also is forced to lie to the court about it.
Child marriage is often forced marriage, because children face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, enter a domestic violence shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action such as a divorce before they turn 18. Further, child marriage destroys girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and significantly increases their risk of being beaten by their spouse.
The U.S. State Department has called marriage before 18 a “human rights abuse.” Let’s Chain-In to demand an end to this human-rights abuse in Massachusetts.
Read more here about Chain-Ins, the powerful form of peaceful protest that we invented to raise awareness of forced and child marriage in America.
Learn more here about other ways you can help to end child marriage in America.
Successes and Setbacks in Eradicating Child Marriage Globally
Parallel Event of the 63rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women
Location: Church Center of the United Nations (Chapel), 777 UN Plaza (corner of 1st Ave. & 44th St.), NYC
Date: March 13, 2019
Time: 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
There are laws. Civil laws, criminal laws, religious laws.
There are policies and practices. Social protection systems. Access to shelter and other support.
And then there are attitudes. The value placed on girls and women.
All three play a vital role in eradicating child, early and forced marriage, but some governments seem not to recognize the perils of ignoring any of these areas. Join us and Mabel van Oranje to compare the successes and setbacks in these key areas in four countries: India, United States, Afghanistan and Kenya. Let’s talk about what we can we learn from these countries as the world continues the push to end child, early and forced marriage and the many other forms of violence to which those abuses leave girls vulnerable.
Our discussion will include an interactive exercise to challenge your preconceived notions of the legal and social protections that exist in various countries to protect girls from child marriage, and it will leave you with specific steps you can take to help end this human-rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.
– Mabel van Oranje, Girls Not Brides
– Urvashi Gandhi, Breakthrough (India)
– Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last (United States)
– Gharsanay IbnulAmeen, 2019 NGO CSW Woman of Distinction (Afghanistan)
– Lydia Matioli, Freely In Hope (Kenya)
– Susanne von Bassewitz, Zonta International
– Nisha Varia, Human Rights Watch
– Unchained At Last
– Breakthrough
– Zonta International
– Freely In Hope
– NGO CSW/NY
No RSVP needed, but arrive on time as space is limited.
