Tamara was 12 years old when she was forced to marry within a cult in Texas. She was trapped for nearly a decade before she escaped, rebuilt her life and became one of our fiercest allies in the national push to end child marriage.

In the last 50 days of the year, how much money can we raise so we can continue advocating relentlessly in all 50 U.S. states to prevent what happened to Tamara from happening to another girl?

All 50for50 donations this week are in honor of Tamara.

Donate Now: 50for50

For a limited time, a generous donor is matching every donation, dollar for dollar — so your donation will double in value.

Not everyone agrees with us that girls deserve to live without the threat of child marriage, a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.

Take New Hampshire Rep. Jess Edwards, who voted earlier this year against banning this harmful practice, because he said teenage girls are of a “ripe, fertile age.”

We need to push back. Let’s see how much we can raise in the last 50 days of 2024 to help end child marriage, and the nightmarish legal trap it creates for girls, in all 50 states. All 50for50 donations this week are in “honor” of Rep. Edwards.

Donate Now: 50for50

For a limited time, a generous donor is matching every donation, dollar for dollar — so your donation will double in value.

These are scary times for girls and women.

But perhaps one bright spot is that we are making progress toward ending child marriage in the U.S. In the last six years, with you as our ally, we have helped to ban this human rights abuse, and the devastation it causes girls, in 13 states. Only 37 states to go.

How much money can you help us raise in the last 50 days of the year so we can end this sexist, archaic practice in all 50 states? Please stand up for girls and donate now to 50for50.

Donate Now: 50for50

For a limited time, a generous donor is matching every donation, dollar for dollar — so your donation will double in value.

Together, over the last six years, we have helped to ban child marriage in 13 U.S. states.

LET’S KEEP PUSHING! In the last 50 days of 2024, let’s see how much we can raise so we can continue advocating relentlessly to end this human rights abuse in all 50 U.S. states. #50for50

This week, all #50for50 donations are in honor of Missouri Sen. Holly Rehder, who was married at 15 — and went on to lead the ongoing effort in her state to eliminate child marriage.

A generous donor will match every dollar you give, up to $75,000.

Donate Now #50for50

Did you see our op-ed in Ms. Magazine, urging Sen. Dick Durbin to withdraw or amend the bill he has introduced? It is called the Child Marriage Prevention Act, but it would:

• Lower the marriage age for immigration purposes in almost half the United States;
• Legalize the trafficking of minors to the U.S. under the guise of marriage; and
• Financially reward states that refuse to ban child marriage.

Please take a moment to email Sen. Durbin and tell him girls in the U.S. and across the globe are relying on us to end child marriage, not move in the opposite direction.

Last week, we submitted a memo to Sen. Dick Durbin asking him to amend the bill he has introduced that would contradict, undermine and obstruct our work to end child marriage. But he has yet to take action.

So now we need your help to convince him: Please take a minute right now to email Sen. Durbin to urge him not to hinder progress, because girls in the U.S. and around the world deserve better.

Nearly 190 allies — including 121 civil society organizations, 42 survivors and 26 ​legislators — joined us on a memo we delivered today to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to urge him to amend the bill he has introduced that would contradict, undermine and obstruct our work to end child marriage in the U.S. (Here is the memo, including a detailed summary of our concerns about the bill and the full list of co-signers.)

We’ll let you know when we hear back from Sen. Durbin. If he does not agree to amend the bill, we will need your help to change his mind.

September 2024

To Sen. Dick Durbin:

We, the undersigned organizations, survivors and state legislators, thank you for introducing S.4990, a bill to “comprehensively combat child marriage” in the United States – but we urge you to amend or delete two sections of the bill that would do the opposite of its stated goal.

Child marriage (marriage before age 18) is recognized globally as a form of forced marriage,[1] which in turn is considered a form of modern slavery.[2] The U.S. State Department calls child marriage a human rights abuse that “exacerbate[s] violence and insecurity,”[3] and the U.S. and the rest of the world have promised to end child marriage by year 2030 to eliminate a harmful practice that hinders gender equality.[4]

But while countries around the world are moving to keep their promise,[5] the U.S. is falling behind. Marriage age here has long been set by each state, not by the federal government,[6] so we have been advocating state by state for a marriage age of 18, no exceptions. In recent years, our efforts have led 13 states to ban child marriage, but it remains legal in the other 37 states.[7] As a result of these outdated laws, more than 300,000 minors have been entered into marriage in the U.S. since 2000 – mostly girls wed to adult men.[8]

Indeed, the United Nations Human Rights Committee noted last year that it is “concerned about the fact that marriage under the age of 18 years is legally permitted” in most of the U.S., and it urged “measures at all levels in order to prohibit marriage under the age of 18 years.”[9]

S.4990 purports to “comprehensively combat child marriage in the U.S.” to the extent that can be done at the federal level. In fact, two sections of S.4990 would do the opposite, with devastating repercussions for girls around the world:

1. Section 10 would set a minimum age of 16 instead of 18 for minors across the globe to receive a spousal visa to the U.S. for a “compelling humanitarian reason” – if the minor married an American adult.

2. Section 6 would provide federal grants to states that do not end child marriage, so these states could “examine” child marriage instead.

Setting a minimum age of 16 instead of 18 to receive a spousal visa to the U.S. would continue to legalize and incentivize a particularly heinous form of child marriage: the trafficking of minors to the U.S. under the guise of marriage. It would encourage predators in the U.S. to “save” girls overseas by marrying the girls and bringing them to the U.S. (This could happen to teens of any gender, but 95 percent of the minors who recently were trafficked to or from the U.S. under the guise of marriage were girls wed to adult men.[10])

Section 10 ignores the horrors that married 16- and 17-year-olds in the U.S. face. Marriage before age 18 destroys girls’ health, education, economic opportunities,[11] sexual and reproductive rights and physical safety.[12] It also creates a nightmarish legal trap: Minors typically cannot leave home, enter a domestic violence shelter, retain an attorney or even file for divorce.[13]

Horrifyingly, Section 10 would allow a minor overseas to receive a spousal visa to the U.S. only if they married an adult. Thus teens trafficked to the U.S. under the guise of marriage likely also would suffer from the power imbalance that inevitably exists between a minor immigrant who does not yet have the legal rights of adulthood and an adult citizen.

Section 10 would lower the marriage age (for immigration purposes) in nearly half of the U.S. Currently, the federal government defers to the relevant state’s marriage age when processing a spousal visa petition involving a minor.[14] That brings huge benefit in the 13 states where we have helped to ban marriage before age 18, and partial benefit in the 10 states where the marriage age is 17. If S.4990 passed, the federal government would lower to 16 the age to receive a spousal visa in those 23 states.

Section 10 purports to improve upon current federal law, which does not set any minimum age to petition for nor to receive a spousal or fiancé visa. However, most of the thousands of minors trafficked recently under the guise of marriage were 16- or 17-year-old girls from overseas wed to a U.S. adult[15] – which would remain legal under S.4990.

Section 10’s limiting underage spousal visas to “humanitarian” situations “arising from a risk of individualized and targeted harm” also does not improve much on current law. Some of us are service providers, and nearly every one of the girls we have served who were trafficked to the U.S. under the guise of marriage came from circumstances that would meet this criterion.

Sections 6 and 10 would obstruct our efforts to convince legislators in 37 more states to ban child marriage, by giving financial rewards to states that refuse to end child marriage and by sending a dangerous message that the U.S. condones marriage at age 16 or 17 in some situations. Many state legislators are reluctant to prioritize girls’ issues. Imagine how much more reluctant they would be if they received a financial reward to EXAMINE child marriage instead of BANNING it, and they could justify their recalcitrance by pointing to precedent in federal law.

These two sections of S.4990 would contradict, undermine and obstruct the U.S. and global promise to end child marriage by year 2030. Girls around the world deserve better. We urge you to strike Section 6 and either amend Section 10 to set the spousal-visa age at 18 or strike that section too.

Sincerely,

Civil Society Organizations

Forced and Child Marriage Survivors

State Legislators

[1] United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Child and Forced Marriage, Including in Humanitarian Settings, https://www.ohchr.org/en/women/child-and-forced-marriage-including-humanitarian-settings.

[2] International Labor Organization and Walk Free Foundation, Forced Labour and Forced Marriage (2017), https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575479.pdf.

[3] U.S. Department of State, et al., United States Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls (March 2016), https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/254904.pdf.

[4] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Sustainable Development (2015), https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal5: Goal 5 is, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” Target 5.3 is, “Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.” Indicator 5.3.1 is, “Proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married or in a union before age 15 and before age 18.”

[5] See, for example: Girls Not Brides, Child Marriage Atlas, https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/child-marriage-atlas/atlas.

[6] See, for example: United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013): “By history and tradition the definition and regulation of marriage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.”

[7] Unchained At Last, Child Marriage Legislation: Progress Map, https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-in-the-u-s/#progress.

[8] Fraidy Reiss, Child Marriage in the United States: Prevalence and Implications, Journal of Adolescent Health (December 2021), https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00341-4/fulltext. (Data since 2018 based on Unchained’s analysis of marriage certificate data retrieved from across the U.S.)

[9] United Nations Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations On the Fifth Periodic Report of the United States of America (7 December 2023), https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUSA%2FCO%2F5&Lang=en.

[10] Sen. Ron Johnson, How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages, United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (11 Jan. 2019), https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=820021.

[11] Fraidy Reiss, Child Marriage in the United States: Prevalence and Implications, Journal of Adolescent Health (December 2021), https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00341-4/fulltext.

[12] Individuals in the U.S. who were married before age 18 report high rates of physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse during their marriage as well as unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. See: Aditi Wahi, et al., The Lived Experience of Child Marriage in the United States, Social Work Public Health (12 February 2019), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30747055. Note that this is consistent with global trends. See, for example: Rachel Kidman, Child Marriage and Intimate Partner Violence: A Comparative Study of 34 Countries, International Journal of Epidemiology (April 2017), https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/2/662/2417355.

[13] Fraidy Reiss, Why Can 12-Year-Olds Still Get Married in the United States?, New York Times (10 February 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/why-does-the-united-states-still-let-12-year-old-girls-get-married.

[14] Sen. Ron Johnson, How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages, United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (11 Jan. 2019), https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=820021.

[15] Sen. Ron Johnson, How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages, United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (11 Jan. 2019), https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=820021.

One of the many ways we support forced and child marriage survivors is by hosting an annual retreat to give our clients and their children a day of fun — and to give survivors a chance to meet, mingle and share their inspiring stories. In past years, we’ve also gathered to watch Broadway shows such as “Aladdin” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”

This year, we traveled together to Six Flags while playing bus games and doing fun crafts, gathered for a pizza buffet parking lot picnic lunch, passed the time in long lines with a park-wide scavenger hunt and ended the day with dinner and reminiscing. Some of our clients conquered their fears as they rode their first rollercoaster or high-flying swings. Others welcomed the opportunity to spend the day with their kids and to meet fellow survivors. We even made some new friends along the way as we cruised through Six Flags’ safari park, the highlight of the day. Our clients’ children were screaming with joy each time one of our new animal friends came to say hello!

We learned on the safari that elephant herds are led by the matriarch, who bears the responsibility of making critical decisions, from determining when and where to move to how to react to potential dangers. This is a striking metaphor for the support we at Unchained offer to survivors, and it shows the unlimited potential of women and girls when they’re free to make their own decisions. Please support our work so we can continue to uplift and empower survivors to live a life of their own choosing and to continue to provide powerful experiences for them to encourage and share with each other.

Our message to Kalra was clear: Stop holding up AB2924, the widely popular bill to end child marriage in California and eliminate a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.

Forced and child marriage survivors from California and across the United States joined us to share their personal stories and to chant and sing in protest against child marriage. We were joined, as well, by allies from the California Coalition to End Child Marriage, including several members of Zonta International.

We at Unchained started and now lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in the United States by making the marriage age 18, no exceptions, in all 50 states. One of the many ways we advocate for change is by hosting Chain-Ins like this. Read more here about this form of peaceful protest we invented.

Child marriage is an urgent problem in California. Dangerous legal loopholes allow parents to enter a child of ANY AGE into marriage with judicial approval — without any real legal recourse for a child who does not want to marry. And U.S. census data shows that more than 8,000 children (mostly girls) in California are entered into marriage every year — often with devastating, lifelong consequences. All of these marriages legalized what would have been considered a sex crime outside of marriage.

Marriage before 18 can too easily be forced, because minors, even a day before their 18th birthday, have limited legal rights that make resisting or escaping an unwanted marriage nearly impossible. Further, marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys American girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and greatly increases their risk of experiencing violence.

Let’s continue pushing. Contact Kalra now to remind him that girls matter, and then see other ways you can get involved.

We refuse to stay silent while California Asm. Ash Kalra blocks the widely popular bill to end child marriage, a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives.

Child marriage is an urgent problem in California. Dangerous legal loopholes allow parents to enter a child of ANY AGE into marriage with judicial approval — without any real legal recourse for a child who does not want to marry.

Our research shows that more than 8,000 children (mostly girls) in California are entered into marriage every year — often with devastating, lifelong consequences. All of these marriages legalized what would have been considered a sex crime outside of marriage.

This calls for a protest.

We at Unchained At Last urge you to Chain-In with us in San Jose on July 18. We’ll gather outside Asm. Kalra’s district office wearing bridal gowns and veils, with our arms chained and mouths taped, to protest forced and child marriage and urge him to pass AB2924, the simple, commonsense bill that would end child marriage in California.

We provide the bridal gowns, veils and chains. All you need to do is register here – and join us to insist Asm. Kalra and California legislators end child marriage!

Speakers include:

• Sara Tasneem, child marriage advocate and survivor​
• Mandy Havlik, child marriage survivor
• Marilyn Smith, child marriage survivor
• Davinder Kaur, forced marriage survivor
• Chavie Weisberger, forced marriage survivor
• Jenn Bradbury, child marriage survivor
• Vilas Wright​, child marriage survivor
• Brigitte Combs, child marriage survivor
• Brittany Wright​, child marriage survivor
• Katherine Cleland, Zonta USA
• Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last

We also will sing and chant against forced and child marriage, including a rendition of The Girls You Have Destroyed, a chilling poem/song we wrote about child marriage in the United States.

Chain-In San Jose
July 18 | 10:00 a.m. PT
Outside Asm. Ash Kalra’s office
111 W St. John St., San Jose, CA 95113

REGISTER HERE (FREE)

Child Marriage in the United States

We at Unchained started and now lead a growing national movement to end child marriage in the United States by making the marriage age 18, no exceptions, in all 50 states.

Marriage before 18 can too easily be forced, because minors, even a day before their 18th birthday, have limited legal rights that make resisting or escaping an unwanted marriage nearly impossible. Further, marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys American girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and greatly increases their risk of experiencing violence.

Join the movement. Chain-In with us to demand an end to this human rights abuse.