The U.S. has promised to end child marriage by year 2030. But so far only seven U.S. states have kept that promise.
We need your help.
Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of 2022, so we can continue leading the national movement to end child marriage in all 50 U.S. states
For a limited time, every donation you make will double in value, thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor.
You are hereby invited to apply for your dream job. As we keep growing, we are hiring for multiple new positions, including:
Which position is right for you?
Also, have you taken action on 50 in 50? Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of the year, to help end child marriage in all 50 U.S. states.
Pat was 14 and pregnant when her parents married her off to the 27-year-old bible study counselor who had been raping her for two years.
“Children in these marriages are trapped,” Pat said. “We must outlaw child marriage.”
Child marriage remains legal in most of the U.S., and thousands of minors marry here every year. Most, like Pat, are girls wed to adult men, typically before the girls are old enough to enter a domestic violence shelter or file for divorce. Many are not old enough to consent to sex.
Together we can end this human rights abuse. With your support — and with Pat as one of our fearless allies — we at Unchained have helped to end child marriage in seven U.S. states over the last four years. Only 43 states to go.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of 2022, so we can continue leading the national movement to end child marriage in all 50 U.S. states.
Every donation you make now will double in value, thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor.
After keeping us waiting for months, the Idaho Supreme Court finally announced its decision yesterday in Carver v. Hornish, the child-marriage case — and its decision was not to make a decision. The court declined to rule on the constitutionality of child marriage.
Also deeply disappointing: The court ruled against the plaintiff, Erin Carver, who was trying to undo a grave injustice. Her ex-husband paid a stranger to marry their then-16-year-old daughter so the girl would be emancipated and he could bypass the courts regarding custody and child support.
This is a reminder of the urgency of our relentless campaign to end child marriage in the United States. Please donate now to help us win this fight in every U.S. state.
Back in February, Idaho Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in the case, which highlighted one of the horrors of child marriage — the ease with which parents can marry off their teen for selfish reasons and leave the teen trapped in a legal nightmare.
Several state and national media outlets covered the case, including The Daily Beast, The Associated Press and the Idaho Post Register.
Learn more about child marriage in the U.S. and our work to end it.
The world is moving backward on girls’ rights — but together we are pushing back.
Let’s gather virtually on International Day of the Girl to insist that girls matter. Please join us tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. ET for a Twitter Space conversation with partners from Equality Now, Freely in Hope and Zonta International about how we are all advancing girls’ rights in the U.S. and globally.
Knots: A Forced Marriage Story, an award-winning, feature-length documentary film that follows three forced marriage survivors from the U.S., including our founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss, is now available to watch via Apple TV and Google Play. Learn more about Knots and how to watch here and watch the trailer below.
Knots, from filmmaker Kate Ryan Brewer, made its global debut in March 2020 and has screened at film festivals around the world. It won “Best Documentary” at the Geelong International Film Festival in Australia and “Best Documentary Feature” at the Manchester Film Festival in the United Kingdom. The film “examines the truth about forced marriage in the U.S. through the complicated experiences of those who have survived it.
Forced marriage is a human rights abuse that happens right here in the U.S., and it impacts people from all backgrounds. In a forced marriage, one or both parties enters without full, free, informed consent. Further, even if both parties enter a marriage with full, free, informed consent, the union can later become a forced marriage if one or both parties is forced to stay in it. Women and girls, including children at least as young as 12, are being forced into marriage here in the U.S.
Read more about forced marriage in the U.S. and our work to end it.
What better way to celebrate our recent Massachusetts victory and build on the momentum it created than with a segment about it on BBC World Service, the world’s largest broadcaster?
Our Fraidy Reiss spoke recently to BBC in an interview that was broadcast around the world — including, for example, on WBUR in Boston.
And remember you can also see us in Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s Apple TV+ docuseries, Gutsy. With your continued support, we will continue making noise until we end forced and child marriage in the U.S.!
Yes, that is our founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss who is featured in Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s new Apple TV+ docuseries, Gutsy, as one of the “world’s boldest and bravest women” who have made an impact in their community and on the world. !! Fraidy appears alongside some of her longtime girl crushes, including Gloria Steinem, Dr. Jane Goodall and Wanda Sykes.
Fraidy makes her appearance in the Gutsy Women Are Rebel Hearts episode of Gutsy, which examines her escape from an abusive forced marriage and her relentless advocacy to end forced and child marriage in the United States.
The docuseries is based on The Book of Gutsy Women (Simon & Schuster), in which Hillary and Chelsea Clinton share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them — including Fraidy.
“Gutsy,” which premiered on Apple TV+ on September 9, follows Hillary and Chelsea Clinton as they “speak with pioneering women artists, activists, community leaders and everyday heroes who show us what it truly means to be gutsy.”
According to the series description, viewers will “Take an unforgettable journey with Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton as they go on adventures with some of the world’s boldest and bravest women – from household names to unsung heroes – who make us laugh and inspire us to be more gutsy.”
Watch our episode of “Gutsy” (and the other seven episodes) now on Apple TV+.
You might have noticed a familiar face if you watched the trailer for Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming docuseries, “Gutsy.
Our founder/executive director Fraidy Reiss is one of the “world’s boldest and bravest women” featured in “Gutsy,” which will premiere September 9 on Apple TV+. Fraidy is in some good company here, alongside Gloria Steinem, Dr. Jane Goodall, Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, Goldie Hawn and many more.
Haven’t seen the trailer yet? Watch it here (or below) and share on social media.
WE DID IT! Our six years of relentless advocacy just led Massachusetts to end child marriage, making it the seventh U.S. state to ban this human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.
Gov. Charlie Baker just approved language the legislature sent him last week in the state budget to eliminate all marriage before 18, without exceptions (which goes into effect immediately!).
Since 2016 we and our allies in the Massachusetts Coalition to End Child Marriage have worked closely with Rep. Kay Khan, Sen. Harriette Chandler and bipartisan legislative champions to achieve this legislative victory.
We compiled in-depth legal research conducted on a pro bono basis by the law firms White & Case and DLA Piper. We met with (or called) every state legislator multiple times. We testified at legislative hearings and submitted memos of support, and we recruited our allies to do the same. We wrote op-ed articles and appeared on television, radio and even in films to raise awareness. We launched email campaigns to target various legislators and the governor. We Chained-In three times in Boston, wearing bridal gowns and chains, to protest child marriage (including one Chain-In that was filmed for an upcoming docuseries on a major streaming platform).
And it worked! Finally!
Lush, the cosmetics company that uses only ethically sourced ingredients, made our work possible with its generosity. And you made this victory possible, if you emailed Massachusetts legislators to urge them to take action, shared our posts on social media or supported us financially.
Previously, parents could enter a child of any age into marriage in Massachusetts, without any input from the child, even if the child was too young to consent to sex. And marriage before age 18 creates a hellish legal trap: Even the most mature 17-year-old is not allowed to enter a domestic violence shelter or even file independently for divorce.
The previous law also contradicted statutory rape laws. Sex with a child under age 16 is a crime in Massachusetts, but marriage to a child under age 16 was perfectly legal. Every time the commonwealth issued a marriage license to a child under age 16, it basically sent a child home to be raped.
Further, marriage before 18 produces such devastating, lifelong repercussions for girls that the U.S. State Department has called it a human rights abuse.
This human rights abuse happened with alarming frequency. Our study found that 1,246 minors, some as young as 13, were entered into marriage in Massachusetts between 2000 and 2018. At least 83 percent were girls wed to adult men an average of 5.15 years older. And 59 were under age 16, too young to consent to sex.
Massachusetts has now joined Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island and New York and embraced the simple, commonsense solution we are pushing in all 50 U.S. states: Set the marriage age at 18, without exceptions. Legislation to that effect harms no one, costs nothing and ends a human rights abuse.
Now we have “only” 43 states to go to end child marriage in the U.S. Your support makes that possible! Please donate now.
The Massachusetts Coalition to End Child Marriage includes: AHA Foundation, American Atheists, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, CAIR Massachusetts, Cape Cod Access, Cape Cod Women for Change, Child USA, Child USAdvocacy, Children’s League of Massachusetts, Children’s Trust MA, Equality Now, Girl Scouts of Central and Western MA, Girl Scouts of Eastern MA, Girl Up Needham, Girls Inc. – Holyoke, Girls Inc. of the Valley, Global Citizen, Group Peer Support, Greater Boston Legal Services, Human Rights Watch, J Strategies, Justice of the Peace Association, Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators, Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MassKids), Massachusetts Coalition to End Human Trafficking, Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, Massachusetts High School Democrats, Massachusetts Justice of the Peace Association, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), Mass NOW, Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, National Association of Social Workers — MA Chapter, Office of the Child Advocate, Pathways for Change, Portal to Hope, Probate and Family Court Department, RIA House, Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence, Students Against Child Marriage, SWIFT: Supporting Women in Financial Transition, The Cape Cod & Island Commission on the Status of Women, Unchained At Last, UNICEF USA, Upper Cape Women’s Coalition, We Stand Together – Martha’s Vineyard, Alianza of Holyoke and Zonta Malden.
Individual members include: Alexis Brickner, Amber Hanson, Carolyn Schwartz, Christopher Viens, Deborah Benson, Diane Lopez, Dr. Shanta Pandy (Boston College School of Social Work), Jamie Sabino, Jana Harris, Jenn Bradbury (child marriage survivor), Julia Freedson (Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs), Kathleen Lenihan (Lexington School Committee), Prof. Margaret Drew (UMASS Dartmouth), Mya Tauber, Nesha Abiraj, Rabbi Claudia Kreiman, Sarah Hemingway, Sarah Pierson, Shagufa Habibi (child marriage survivor) and Simon Goodacre.
