Were you among the some 20 protesters who joined Unchained At Last for a Chain-In in Boston on May 11, 2017 – dressed in bridal gowns and veils, with arms chained and mouths taped – to send a powerful message to legislators: Pass S785/H2310 and end child marriage in Massachusetts?
Photo credit for first 17 photos: Susan Landmann
Photo credit for last 3 photos: Tira Khan
The Chain-In drew a large crowd of onlookers and garnered significant media attention. Here are links to some of the news stories:
The activists who addressed the crowd at the the Chain-In included:
Read here about Unchained’s past Chain-Ins.
Child marriage – or marriage before age 18 – is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into or trapped within a marriage, because they cannot easily access legal and other resources.
Yet marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 US states, and many thousands of children were married in the U.S. in the last decade. In Massachusetts alone, some 1,190 children as young as 14 were married between 2000 and 2014 – mostly girls wed to adult men. And forced marriage happens to adults too, but the US has long lagged behind other countries in acknowledging and responding to this human rights abuse.
The solution? Unchained started and now leads a growing national movement to end child marriage in the US, state by state, by writing, introducing and passing legislation to eliminate marriage before age 18.
Join the movement. Chain-In with us at a future Chain-In to grab the attention of policymakers and the public, and help end child marriage in America.
Imagine a crowd of people dressed in bridal gowns and veils, with their arms chained and mouths taped, standing on the steps of the Massachusetts State House to protest child marriage.
Now imagine you’re one of them.
Join us at Unchained At Last for our next Chain-In on May 11 in Boston. Be among the survivors, legislators and activists who send a powerful message: Pass S785/H2310, the bill to end child marriage in Massachusetts.
May 11 | 11:30 a.m.
Steps of Mass. State House (Boston)
Gowns, veils, chains and tape provided by Unchained
REGISTRATION IS FREE AND EASY
Speakers include:
Ending Child Marriage in America
We at Unchained started and now lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in America. We are working to draft, introduce and pass legislation to that effect, state by state.
Currently marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states. However, children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage before they become legal adults, because they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, access a shelter, retain an attorney or bring a legal action. Further, the impacts of marriage before 18 on a girl’s life are devastating enough that the U.S. State Department considers such marriage a “human rights abuse.”
Our groundbreaking research showed an estimated 248,000 children at least as young as 12 were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010 – mostly girls wed to adult men.
To build support for legislation to end child marriage, Unchained writes op-eds like the recent one in the Washington Post; hosts Chain-Ins like this one to protest forced and child marriage; gives regular media interviews; and presents at conferences and other venues.
We’re seeing progress. Bills we’ve helped to write and/or are helping to pass, that would end or reduce child marriage, now are pending in:
You can help end child marriage in America:
Thank You
This Chain-In is made possible by generous supporters including:
And now our work to end child marriage in the U.S. has spread to Pennsylvania, where Rep. Perry Warren today introduced HB 1038 to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions.
Kean University today gave Unchained’s founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss, the Outstanding Human Rights Community Activist award. The award recognized Fraidy’s work to help women and girls escape forced marriages, and to end forced and child marriage in America.
How’s this for good news for girls and women? The legislation we helped to write to end child marriage has made its way to the West Coast, where California Sen. Jerry Hill today introduced a bill to end all marriage before 18.
Bills to end or limit child marriage now are pending in:
And Pennsylvania is about to join the list too.
Unchained’s leader, Fraidy Reiss, was featured today in a piece on PRI’s The World titled “Child brides are a little-known, but very real, problem in America today.”
Fraidy described her own abusive marriage, arranged for her when she was 19, and talked about her work to help other women and girls escape forced marriages.
“We’ve had clients from Jewish, Muslim and Christian backgrounds who are married as children,” she told The World. “And they have come from every socioeconomic level, from both multigenerational American families as well as immigrant families.”
Listen here to the full segment.
Last night our hard work paid off: The New Jersey senate voted 26-5 to pass the bill we helped to write – and spent a year and a half tirelessly promoting – to end child marriage. The assembly already passed the bill, which means that if the governor doesn’t kill it, New Jersey will become the first U.S. state to end all marriage before 18.
And it won’t be the last. We’re already working in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri and New York to pass legislation to end or limit child marriage, and Pennsylvania is about to join that list.
And on Friday, Texas introduced a bill to end most marriage before 18, thanks to the advocacy of our ally, the Tahirih Justice Center.
Do your legislators and governor know you want them to end child marriage? Tell them by emailing them here.
Right now marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states – even though children can easily be forced into marriage or forced to stay in a marriage before they become legal adults, and even though the impacts of marriage before 18 on a girl’s life are devastating enough that the U.S. State Department considers such marriage a “human rights abuse.”
We at Unchained started and now lead a growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in America. We are working to draft, introduce and pass legislation, state by state, to eliminate all marriage before 18 without exceptions.
To build support for this legislation, Unchained writes op-eds like this one published last month in the Washington Post (which garnered nearly a million unique views); hosts Chain-Ins to protest forced and child marriage; gives regular media interviews; and presents at conferences and other venues.
You can help end child marriage in America:
This was a good week for all of us who want to end child marriage in America.
Monday: We at Unchained At Last joined other advocates and child-marriage survivor Naila Amin in Hartford to testify in support of Connecticut‘s bill to end all marriage before 18, without exceptions.
Tuesday: The New York Senate voted unanimously to approve the bill we helped to write to decrease child marriage. The bill would end marriage before 17, a first step toward ending all child marriage.
Wednesday: We stood with Pennsylvania Rep. Perry Warren to announce he is going to introduce a bill to end all marriage before 18.
Thursday: We and our ally, the Tahirih Justice Center, testified in Annapolis in support of the bill we helped to write in Maryland to end all marriage before 18.
Sadly, also on Thursday the New Hampshire house of representatives voted against a bill to end child marriage.
Still, the progress continues: This coming Monday, the New Jersey senate will vote on the bill we helped to write, also to end all marriage before 18. If the senate approves the bill, and the governor approves it, New Jersey will become the first state to end all child marriage, without exceptions.
Let’s keep up this momentum! Please keep contacting your legislators and your governor to urge them to protect children from the human-rights abuse that is child marriage.
Child marriage, or marriage before 18, is a human-rights abuse. Yet it is legal in all 50 U.S. states, as Unchained’s founder and executive director, Fraidy Reiss, today explained on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. Listen to the full conversation here.
We at Unchained At Last held a Chain-In on February 14 in the New York Statehouse to protest child marriage and forced marriage in New York and across the US. We wore bridal gowns and veils, with our arms chained, to send a powerful message to legislators: End child marriage in New York.
The Chain-In garnered significant media attention, helping to achieve one of its goals: to raise awareness about what used to be a little-known human-rights abuse. Here are just a few of the media stories about the Chain-In:
Unchained is proud and grateful that the survivors, activists and allies who addressed the crowd at the the Chain-In/One Billion Rising event included:
Unchained also is proud and grateful that Girls Not Brides granted permission for protesters at the Chain-In/One Billion Rising event to sing “We Are Girls, Not Brides,” a haunting song written by girls in Zambia.
Read here about Unchained’s other Chain-Ins.
HUMAN-RIGHTS ABUSES
Child marriage – or marriage before age 18 – is a human-rights abuse that undermines girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and increases their risk of experiencing violence. Often, too, child marriage is forced marriage: Children can easily be forced into or trapped within a marriage, because they cannot easily access legal and other resources.
Yet marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 U.S. states, and many thousands of children were married in the U.S. in the last decade. In New York alone, more than 3,850 children as young as 14 were married between 2000 and 2010. And forced marriage happens to adults too, but the U.S. has long lagged behind other countries in acknowledging and responding to this human rights abuse.
The solution? Let’s start by reserving marriage, a serious legal contract, for those who have reached the age of majority. We Chained-In to grab the attention of policymakers and the public, and make sure lawmakers pass legislation to end child marriage.
