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 — has made its way to the Idaho Supreme Court.
Idaho Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments today in the case of a Boise mother seeking full custody of her daughter and the annulment of her daughter’s marriage. The woman’s ex-husband married off their then-16-year-old daughter to a stranger in a sham marriage so the daughter would be emancipated and he could bypass the courts regarding custody and child support.
This case highlights just one of the horrific dangers of the child marriage loopholes that remain in 44 U.S. states. 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.
If you haven’t done so already, register for our virtual screening of Woman and post-film discussion of the plight of women today, including forced and child marriage.
Did you notice the gorgeous music playing as Kaori Sakamoto of Japan skated her way to an Olympic bronze medal last week?
It was the soundtrack of “Woman,” the gorgeous film we will screen March 18 as a parallel event to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The film features interviews with hundreds of women around the world, including (briefly) our Fraidy Reiss.
We have received an overwhelming response to our invitations to this exclusive film screening, and we are quickly approaching capacity. If you have not already done so, we encourage you to REGISTER NOW, before it is too late.
First come, first served!
Did you register yet for our virtual parallel event to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on March 18 at 12:00 p.m. ET?
Already more than 200 people have signed up to join us as we watch the gorgeous film Woman followed by a discussion with the film’s director and two forced/child marriage survivors interviewed for the film, including our Fraidy Reiss.
Don’t miss out!
As the United Nations launches the virtual 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women – the world’s largest annual gathering on women’s rights – we at Unchained At Last are launching a virtual parallel event.
We’ll watch “Woman,” a gorgeous film that examines the lives and experiences of hundreds of women around the world. And we’ll discuss with the filmmaker and two of the women interviewed for the film — including our Fraidy Reiss — the central question “Woman” raises: How far have women come, and how far do they still have to go?
Speakers:
• Anastasia Mikova, Writer/Journalist/Film Director (“Woman” Co-Director)
• Houry Geudelekian, Chair of NGO CSW/NY (child marriage survivor and “Woman” interviewee)
• Fraidy Reiss, Founder/Executive Director of Unchained At Last (forced marriage survivor and “Woman” interviewee)
Sponsors:
• Unchained At Last
• NGO CSW/NY
18 March 2022
12:00 p.m. EDT – 2:00 p.m. EDT | 9:00 a.m. PDT – 11:00 a.m. PDT | 4:00 p.m. GMT – 6:00 p.m. GMT
ABOUT “WOMAN”
From filmmakers Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, “Woman” is based on interviews with some 2,000 women in 50 countries. In a world where women are forced to marry, deprived of an education, forbidden from going outside on their own and subjected to myriad other abuses, the film is a message of love and hope.
ABOUT CSW
Each year the United Nations hosts the Commission on the Status of Women, the world’s largest annual gathering on women’s rights, in New York City. Representatives of member states, UN entities and approved non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world are invited to attend.
The 66th session of CSW will take place virtually, due to the covid pandemic. It will last from 14 to 25 March 2022, with a priority theme of achieving gender equality in the context of climate change and a review theme of women’s economic empowerment.
ABOUT UNCHAINED AT LAST
Unchained is a survivor-led NGO 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 individuals in the U.S. escape arranged/forced marriages. Unchained also pushes for social, policy and legal change, including by leading a growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state.
Unchained, founded in 2011, has been an Organization in Special Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2017.
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Only badasses like you need apply for the new senior-level positions that just opened, for the first time ever, here at the survivor-led nonprofit that leads the national movement to end forced and child marriage in the United States.
And we advise you to apply NOW, because these unique opportunities to join us — and make a career out of ending a human rights abuse — will get snatched up quickly:
Not much is good about 2022 so far, except this: As we continue to grow, we are hiring for multiple positions — including advocacy, direct services and administrative — all which offer competitive salaries and a dazzling array of benefits including:
Apply now, before someone else steals your dream job.
We set out to raise $50,000 in the last 50 days of 2021 to help end child marriage in all 50 states.
You helped us to achieve our goal. Three. Times. Over. Thanks to you, we raised nearly $160,000 to continue our work in 2022 leading the growing national movement to end child marriage in every U.S. state. And thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor, you actually helped us raise some $320,000!
Clearly you believe not only in our mission but also in our ability to achieve that mission. We promise not to let you down: Thanks to your generosity, we will continue to kick butt in 2022 — raising awareness, building coalitions and convincing legislators to end child marriage.
Child marriage creates a hellish legal trap. Minors can be entered into marriage in most U.S. states — often without any input from them — even though they typically cannot file for divorce or even enter a domestic violence shelter, as Chelsea Clinton and our Fraidy Reiss discussed recently (see brief video below).
There’s still time to help us eliminate this nightmarish trap in all 50 U.S. states, by helping us raise 50k* $100k by the end of the year. Every dollar you donate now will double in value, thanks to a match from a generous donor.
*Goal already met! Thank you.
“These children don’t have voices yet,” Delaware Rep. Kim Williams told our Fraidy Reiss about the hundreds of thousands of minors who were legally entered into marriage recently in the U.S., typically before they were old enough to file for divorce. “They want us to be their voices.” (See the brief video, below.)
Rep. Williams has been a crucial voice: She partnered with us in 2018 to make Delaware the first U.S. state to end child marriage. Since then, we have helped five states to follow. Only 44 states to go.
We have surpassed our goal of raising $50k in the last 50 days of 2021 to help end child marriage in all 50 states, and we have surpassed the new goal we set last week of raising $75k (!). Now, with a week left to the year, here’s our new challenge to you: Let’s get to $100k by the end of the year to help eliminate this human rights abuse in the U.S. Every dollar you donate before December 31 will double in value, thanks to a match from a generous donor.
