With two weeks left to go, thanks to you, we’ve already passed our goal of raising $50,000 in the last 50 days of the year to help end child marriage in all 50 states!
So we’re officially upping our goal to $75,000 by the end of the year. Can you help us meet our new goal, so we can continue leading the growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level? Every dollar you donate from now until December 31 will double in value, thanks to a match from a generous donor.
“I hope that as people are looking to invest into addressing child marriage within the U.S., they do think of Unchained At Last as a major player and partner,” UNICEF’s Nankali Maksud told our Fraidy Reiss.
“Without the work Unchained At Last has done, in terms of evidence collection and in terms of being the voice for child marriage in the United States, many of us just wouldn’t know,” Nankali explained. (Watch Nankali and Fraidy’s conversations in these short clips).
We can’t end child marriage globally if we don’t eliminate it in the United States. And that means the national effort we lead to end this human rights abuse in the U.S. has global implications, as allies including Human Rights Watch’s Heather Barr and Girls Not Brides’ Faith Mwangi-Powell recently told our Fraidy Reiss.
Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of 2021 to end child marriage in all 50 U.S. states — and move the entire world closer to eliminating this sexist, archaic, harmful practice. Every dollar you donate now will double in value, thanks to a match from a generous donor.
Watch our brief conversations with Heather and Faith below, and watch all of our past conversations here.
“The work of Unchained At Last is infectious,” Mabel van Oranje of Girls Not Brides and VOW recently told our Fraidy Reiss (see brief video below). “It is hard not to engage when you and your colleagues are involved.”
With partners like Mabel — and YOU! — we can end child marriage in the U.S. So far we have raised more than $32k in our campaign to raise $50k in the last 50 days of the year to help eliminate this human rights abuse in all 50 U.S. states. Please help us get all the way to $50k!
Every donation you make now will double in value, thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor.
A major victory in our push to educate the world about child marriage in the U.S.: Our groundbreaking research was just published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, in a supplement alongside other research about child marriage globally.
Our study, the first of its kind, found that nearly 300,000 children were legally married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, mostly girls wed to adult men, typically before the girls were old enough to file for divorce. At least 60,000 children were married at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.
You can do something about this! Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of 2021 so we can continue leading the national movement to end child marriage in all 50 U.S. states.
Check out the brief video clip below, in which global health expert Dr. Yvette Efevbera — who made our research possible — explains why she is passionate about ending child marriage.
“I know that you’re not giving up until child marriage is banned everywhere,” Chelsea Clinton recently told our founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss (see video below).
Absolutely not. We at Unchained have helped to ban marriage before age 18 in six U.S. states over the last three years, but this human rights abuse remains legal in most of the U.S.
April was barely 15 when she was married in Missouri to a 22-year-old man who raped her that night and continued to rape her for over a year.
“It was a hostage situation, not a marriage,” April said. “But I am no longer afraid nor ashamed to speak about it publicly, as it is not my shame, but his.”
It is all our shame. Child marriage remains legal in most of the U.S. — and thousands of minors marry here every year, our research found. Most, like April, are girls wed to adult men, typically before the girls are old enough to enter a domestic violence shelter or file for divorce.
Together we can end this human rights abuse. We eliminated child marriage in six U.S. states over the last three years. Only 44 states to go.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Let’s raise $50k in the last 50 days of 2021, to continue leading the national movement to end child marriage in all 50 states.
“Unchained At Last is the radical wake-up call to a country in denial,” April said, “and they won’t stop until child marriage is outlawed in every state.” (Read April’s full story here.)
Every donation you make before the end of the year will double in value, thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor.
Join us and fellow Gates Foundation Learning Consortium partners at 11am ET/8am PT on October 12 for a virtual celebration of International Day of the Girl as we hear the latest evidence on child marriage and discuss how these findings can support advocacy, programming and further research. Register here.
Dressed in bridal gowns and chains, we and our allies marched from Boston Common to the Massachusetts State House to urge Massachusetts legislators to pass H1709/S937 — as we have been pushing them to do since 2017! — and finally eliminate the dangerous legal loopholes that allow marriage before age 18. All Chain-Ins are special, but this Chain-In was extra special: It was filmed for an upcoming documentary series on a major platform.
Speakers included:
Our Chain-In drew the attention of passersby and international news media, including The Guardian, Agence France-Presse, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Boston University News Service and others.
Photos by Matilde Simas
Here come the brides! Please join us at our next Chain-In protest of forced and child marriage September 22 in Boston.
All Chain-Ins are special, but this Chain-In is extra special: It will be filmed for an upcoming documentary series on a major platform.
As at every Chain-In, we will wear bridal gowns and chains — which we provide — as we urge Massachusetts legislators to pass H1709/S937 and end the sexist, archaic, harmful practice of child marriage.
Due to the special nature of this Chain-In, space is extremely limited. Registrations are accepted on a first come, first served basis. The registration deadline is 9:00 am ET on Wednesday, September 15.
