Our executive director, Fraidy Reiss, testified today before the NJ assembly judiciary committee, urging legislators to support A3091 and end child marriage in New Jersey. The committee will vote on the bill in the coming months.
You can help end child marriage in the US: Sign the petition!
“Please! Let’s work together to end child marriage across the US and around the world.”
That’s how Unchained’s executive director, Fraidy Reiss, concluded her address to nearly 100 people who attended a Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60) side event about child marriage. The event was organized by BPW International.
Various speakers talked about child marriage in various African countries and New Zealand, but Reiss shocked the audience with two facts:
1) Child marriage is legal in all 50 US states.
2) Child marriage is happening at an alarming rate across the US. Thousands of children as young as 12 have married recently in this country.
Have you noticed cameras following us lately?
We at Unchained At Last are proud to announce that the media and production company Women Rising has approached us and secured the rights to our story and the story of our founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss.
Sara Hirsh Bordo, who directed the award-winning film A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story, will direct and produce a documentary film about our work to end forced marriage in the US. Full production will begin in the fall.
We at Unchained At Last are delighted to announce that our founder, Fraidy Reiss, has been nominated for the prestigious DVF People’s Voice Award – and you can help us win.
The DVF Awards were created in 2010 by Diane von Furstenberg and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to honor and support extraordinary women who have had the courage to fight, the power to survive and the leadership to inspire. The awards recognize women who have transformed the lives of others through their commitment, resources and visibility.
Do you agree that Fraidy fits that description? We hope you do, because the People’s Voice Award is chosen by popular vote from four nominees, with voting open to the public until March 27.
Please VOTE NOW, and get everyone you know to do the same. If we win, we will receive $50,000 to help women fleeing forced marriages, and we will be recognized at an awards ceremony on April 7 at the United Nations headquarters on the occasion of the Women in the World conference.
~ EMAIL: Forward this email to at least 10 people you know who care about ending forced marriage and child marriage. Ask them to vote too, and ask each of them to forward the email to 10 more people.
~ TWEET: Take to Twitter. Here’s a sample tweet: <<A vote for @UnchainedAtLast to win #DVFAwards is a vote to end #forcedmarriage & #childmarriage. Vote & RT now! http://on.dvf.com/O34Z0Z>>
~ POST: Get on Facebook and other social media platforms. Here’s a sample post: <<Help win $50,000 for women fleeing forced marriages – and help end #forcedmarriage and #childmarriage in the US – by voting for @UnchainedAtLast to win the @DVF People’s Voice Award! Please vote now and please share this post. http://on.dvf.com/O34Z0Z>>
~ TALK: Tell everyone you know about Unchained’s nomination for the DVF Award.
Fraidy Reiss’ family considers her dead.
When Fraidy was 19, her family arranged her marriage, per the custom in their insular religious community in Brooklyn. She discovered only a week after her wedding that her new husband was violent – and that she was trapped. Her family refused to help her; she had no way to support herself or, soon, her two daughters; and she faced religious laws that allowed only men to grant a divorce.
Fraidy was trapped for 12 years before she escaped, by earning a college degree and financial independence. Her family declared her dead, but she rebuilt her life with her two daughters and went on to found Unchained At Last, the only US nonprofit dedicated to providing free legal and social services to help women and girls escape arranged/forced marriages.
Unchained has been featured in the New York Times, written and passed important legislation, presented at the White House, and provided crucial, often life-saving services to hundreds of women and girls – many whose families have declared them dead.
Actually, they are very much alive, and part of a growing, thriving new family: Unchained At Last.
Click here to read a New York Times story about Fraidy. titled Woman Breaks Through Chains of Forced Marriage, and Helps Others Do the Same.
Click here to read an op-ed Fraidy wrote in the New York Times in October, titled America’s Child Marriage Problem. The op-ed started a national conversation about child marriage in the US and helped lead to legislation currently pending in four states to end child marriage.
Unchained today testified before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee in support of HB911, which would end child marriage in Maryland.
Currently, child marriage is legal in all 50 US states, and thousands of children, as young as 10, have married in recent years. Del. Vanessa Atterbeary introduced HB911 last month, after reading the New York Times op-ed Unchained wrote about “America’s Child Marriage Problem.”
Three other states, New York, New Jersey and Virginia, also introduced similar legislation after the op-ed was published. Unchained’s goal is to see all 50 states introduce and pass legislation to end child marriage in America. Details here.
Some 40 guests joined the Kilpatrick Townsend Women’s Initiative and Unchained at Last tonight in New York City for a screening of the film DIFRET, followed by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton generously hosted the event to benefit Unchained, the only nonprofit in the US dedicated to helping women and girls leave or avoid arranged/forced marriages.
From executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt, the award-winning drama DIFRET is based on the true story of 14-year-old Hirut, who is abducted in her Ethiopian village’s tradition of kidnapping girls for marriage. She fights back, accidentally killing her captor and intended husband. Local law demands a death sentence for Hirut, but Meaza, a tough lawyer from a women’s legal-aid practice, steps in to fight for Hirut and against a deeply rooted tradition.
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is an international law firm with 18 offices and some 550 attorneys that is particularly well known for its intellectual-property practice. The firm, which has won numerous awards for community service, has shown exceptional generosity to Unchained: A team of Kilpatrick Townsend attorneys recently represented an Unchained client pro bono through her divorce proceeding, as she fled an arranged marriage.
The Kilpatrick Townsend Women’s Initiative is focused on driving the growth of the firm’s business, building the firm’s talent pipeline and assuring the inclusion of women at the firm. Unchained is deeply grateful to the Kilpatrick Townsend Women’s Initiative for hosting this film-and-fundraising event to benefit Unchained.
Unchained’s work to end child marriage in the US was in the spotlight last night on Al Jazeera America television.
“This [child marriage] is legal in the United States, and this is happening in the United States,” Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s executive director, told Al Jazeera.
Unchained and its allies are pushing to end child marriage in all 50 states. So far, four states have introduced legislation to end the practice: Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.
New Jersey is now the fourth state where legislation is pending to end child marriage, thanks to the work of Unchained and its allies.
Click here and here to read two of the many news media articles about this that have been published recently, and expect soon to see Unchained interviewed on Al Jazeera America television and on NPR radio.
Currently, child marriage is legal in all 50 states – and children in the US have been marrying at an alarming rate, as Unchained revealed in October in an op-ed in the New York Times. In New Jersey alone, 3,499 children as young as 10 were married between 1995 and 2012, mostly minor girls married to adult men.
Since that op-ed was published, legislators in four states have worked with Unchained and its allies to introduce legislation to end child marriage:
Unchained and its allies’ work to end child marriage in every US state continues to yield results. First it was New York, then Virginia; now the progress is in Maryland, where a bill has been introduced to eliminate two dangerous exceptions to Maryland’s minimum marriage age that currently allow children as young as 15 to wed.
Since 2000, more than 3,000 child marriages have occurred in Maryland, including nearly 150 that involved children age 15 or even younger. Some 85% of the children married were girls.
Unchained, in partnership with Tahirih Justice Center, worked with Del. Vanessa Atterbeary to draft the bill (HB0911), and both organizations will testify in support March 3 in Maryland. You can show your support – in Maryland and across the US – by signing the petition.
In New York, the bill Asw. Amy Paulin introduced to end child marriage (A8563) remains pending; Unchained is working with Sanctuary for Families to get it passed. In Virginia, due to Tahirih’s hard work, a bill (S415) is advancing in the legislature. In New Jersey, expect to hear an announcement soon about legislation introduced.
NTN24 aired an interview with Unchained At Last about child marriage. If you speak Spanish, view the interview here.
