Unchained helped Jamie, Syeda, Esther and others to break their chains.
Unchained is the only nonprofit in the U.S. dedicated to helping women and girls leave or avoid arranged/forced marriage. Your generous donation to Unchained will directly and significantly impact a woman or girl who might otherwise remain chained in a marriage she did not choose.
Unchained, founded in 2011 as an all-volunteer organization, has helped some 100 women and girls from across the U.S. Donors like you have made that possible.
Thousands of others need help unchaining themselves — and Unchained needs your help to provide the services they need.
Unchained is expanding its team of pro bono attorneys and therapists, increasing its outreach and advocacy efforts and hiring staffers, so the organization can unchain more women.
And you can help. Every donation to Unchained, no matter the amount, makes a real difference to a woman or a girl like Jamie who is trying to leave or resist an arranged/forced marriage. Here’s an idea of how your support can Break a Chain:
~ $50 buys a week’s worth of groceries for a girl who has fled a forced marriage
~ $100 means a winter coat for a woman who escaped a forced marriage without any of her personal belongings
~ $250 covers court fees so a woman can file for divorce and end an unwanted marriage
~ $500 pays for a mover to help a woman move away from an abusive arranged marriage and into her own home
~ $1,000 gives medical care to a forced-marriage survivor who is not eligible for Medicaid
~ $5,000 provides a custody evaluation to save a woman from losing custody of her children as she flees a forced marriage
Unchained At Last is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and all donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
You think coercive marriages aren’t a problem for women in the US? Think again.
That was the message that PRI’s The World sent yesterday, with a segment on arranged/forced marriage that aired on more than 300 stations across the US and Canada. The segment featured Unchained At Last’s founder and executive director, Fraidy Reiss, as well as an Unchained client who gave only her first name, Syeda.
Fraidy and Syeda talked with host Marco Werman about their personal experiences: Each woman was pressured into marriage as a teenager — Fraidy in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, and Syeda in a Muslim community in Pakistan. And each woman was shunned by her family when she left her abusive arranged marriage.
The two women’s friendship developed after Syeda approached Unchained, the nonprofit Fraidy founded, and asked for help ending her marriage and rebuilding her life.
“I just feel the same passion Fraidy has to just put a smile on some woman’s face,” Syeda said at the conclusion of the interview, with a surprise announcement that she wants to join Unchained’s almost all-volunteer staff. “I think I would like to spend the rest of my life doing that.”
Click here to listen to the PRI’s The World segment.
About Syeda
Syeda was forced into marriage at age 16 in Pakistan. She went along with the marriage to her first cousin, a stranger to her, only after her father told her that was the only way she’d be allowed to attend college.
After her wedding, Syeda continued to live with her own parents, without her husband, and the family moved to the US. But when she was 25, her husband followed her to the US and moved in with her and her family — and he subjected her to unspeakable physical and sexual abuse. He also demanded that Syeda move with him back to Pakistan.
Syeda endured seven weeks of her husband’s abuse before her family threw her out of the house, because of her refusal to return with her husband to Pakistan. Syeda fled to a shelter.
Despite what she has been through, Syeda has taken control of her life. She is a college student, close to graduating with a bachelor’s degree, and she has a job. She managed to move out of the shelter after only a brief stay, and she has her own apartment. She owns her own car. She speaks English fluently.
Unchained now is working with Syeda to help her get divorced and end, forever, her forced marriage.
Unchained was featured June 6 on Women’s Media Center Live with Robin Morgan.
Morgan interviewed Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s and executive director, who talked about how she managed to flee her own abusive arranged marriage and went on to found Unchained to help other women do the same.
“My process of getting out was so difficult … that I decided … I need to help other women do the same thing,” Reiss told Morgan. “And that’s why I started Unchained At Last.”
It’s not every day that a group of arranged/forced marriage survivors descends on Six Flags Great Adventure and Safari to get a break from their troubles. But that’s what happened today, when Unchained hosted its first outing for Unchained women and girls and for their children.
All told, 28 people (and one puppy) joined the trip to Six Flags, including some young women for whom the trip meant a respite from the domestic violence shelter where they live.
For two of the forced marriage survivors who attended – a woman from Ivory Coast and a woman from Iran – this was their first visit to a theme park. For most members of the group, this was the first time a giraffe walked right up to them to say hello.
“The weather was gorgeous; the energy was fantastic,” Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s executive director, said. “And watching the survivors and their children interact with each other, crossing religious and language barriers, was overwhelming.”
Unchained and the brave women and girls it helps are grateful to the Good People Fund for generously sponsoring the entire Six Flags trip, including the park tickets, the chartered bus and the delicious pizza dinner.
Stay tuned for news of the next Unchained outing …
NPR’s All Things Considered aired a segment yesterday about forced marriage in the US, a human rights violation that many people assume happens only overseas.
The segment featured an interview with Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, which helps women and girls leave or avoid arranged/forced marriages. Reiss herself was trapped in an abusive arranged marriage when she was 19, and her family and community shunned when she finally fled the marriage 12 years later.
“People often ask me when I tell them my story, ‘Where you from? Iran?’ And I tell them I’m from Brooklyn,” Reiss told All Things Considered.
For many girls and women, arranged/forced marriage means a lifetime of rapes and beatings. Often they are not allowed to finish their education and are forced into lifelong domestic servitude.
Click here to hear the segment and to read NPR’s blog entry about it.
On April 14, 2015, Unchained organized a historic Chain-In to protest forced marriage in the U.S. Some 60 survivors, advocates and supporters gathered in Union Square, New York City, with their arms chained and their mouths taped shut, to show the world what life looks like for the many thousands of girls and women in forced marriages right here in the U.S.
“End forced marriage now,” the protesters chanted (those whose mouths were not taped).
The protesters included forced-marriage survivors, advocates and supporters. A series of survivors and advocates addressed the crowd over a megaphone.
“I was told I had a choice,” Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained, told the protesters as she described her own abusive arranged marriage. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Jasvinder Sanghera, a forced marriage survivor who founded Karma Nirvana to help forced marriage victims in the UK, talked about her sister, who killed herself to escape a horrific forced marriage. And Kavitha Rajagopalan, adviser to the Unchained board, described the many arranged marriages in her own family.
Sometimes forced marriage is couched as “arranged marriage,” the speakers noted.
“Is it arranged or is it forced?” asked Lani Santo, executive director of Footsteps, which helps people leave the Orthodox Jewish community. Santo described the ordeal many Footsteppers have endured: teenagers who are given a half hour or less to “decide” whether to marry a prospective match.
Stephanie Baric, executive director of the AHA Foundation, noted that forced marriage happens in many cultures and religions. “People often dismissed forced marriage as ‘their culture,’ but it is OUR society,” Baric said.
Were you at the Chain-In? Either way, click here to see photos from it — and stay tuned for news about the next Chain-In, so you can be part of it.
THANK YOU
Thank you to all the people who Chained-In on April 14, 2015, and to the speakers who engaged and enlightened them.
Thank you, too, to these people who made the Chain-In possible: David Cohen of Bungalow Entertainment, Heather Braun and Lauren Gottleib.
A special thank you to photographer Susan Landmann and filmmakers Lindsay Rothenberg and Trish Dalton, who generously donated their time and talents to capture the Chain-In on film.
ABOUT FORCED MARRIAGE IN THE U.S.
Right here in the U.S., girls and women sometimes are forced, pressured or tricked into marriage. A 2011 study by the Tahirih Justice Center found 3,000 known or suspected cases of girls in the U.S. as young as 15 who had been forced to marry just between 2009 and 2011.
Does that shock you? Perhaps that’s because the U.S. has lagged behind other nations in acknowledging and responding to this human rights violation.
Here’s what you can do to help women and girls in the U.S. who are trying to leave or resist forced marriages:
~ Join an upcoming Chain-In, and get your friends to do the same.
~ Stay updated on news about forced marriage in the U.S. Join the Unchained mailing list, “like” Unchained on Facebook, and follow Unchained on Twitter.
~ Volunteer your time to help a woman or a girl who is facing a forced marriage. Unchained relies on the kindness of pro bono attorneys, psychotherapists and others. Details HERE.
~ Support Unchained financially by clicking the DONATE NOW button at the top of this page. Even a small donation makes a huge difference to a woman or a girl fleeing a forced marriage.
Questions about the Chain-In? Email info@unchainedatlast.org or call (908) 913-0804.
The New York Times today features a column about Unchained At Last with the headline, “Woman Breaks Through Chains of Forced Marriage, and Helps Others Do the Same.”
The piece focuses on Unchained’s executive director, Fraidy Reiss, who, after escaping her own abusive arranged marriage, founded Unchained to help women and girls from all cultures and religions to flee or resist forced marriages.
Unchained provides free legal services to its clients. And “because the clients’ situations can be so catastrophic — forced at gunpoint to accept a marriage, raped by a husband, essentially imprisoned within the home as a domestic servant — Unchained at Last also provides mentoring, access to therapy and cash stipends for everything from basic clothing to English as a second language class,” the column explains.
The column quotes an Unchained client as saying: “I cannot even describe what it’s like to have an angel sweep down and kiss you on the forehead and then hold your hand and tell you, ‘I’m not letting go until you’re O.K.’ ”
The piece describes how Unchained has grown in less than four years to help more than 90 women and girls, pass a law in New Jersey last year, and participate earlier this week in a planning session held by the White House Council on Women and Girls to develop a national policy on forced marriage.
You can join the effort to help end forced marriage in the U.S.
Register now to join a historic Chain-In on April 14 in Union Square (New York City). Survivors, activists and others will stand in chains, with duct tape across their mouths, to show the world what life looks like for the many thousands of girls and women in forced marriages in the U.S.
For other ways to help end forced marriage, visit unchainedatlast.org.
The U.S. took a significant step yesterday toward acknowledging and responding to a human rights violation that many people think happens only overseas: forced marriage.
Key federal agencies met at the White House with a group of advocates – including Unchained At Last – to discuss developing a national action plan to stop forced marriage. Many thousands of people in the U.S., from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, are in or are facing forced marriages, and current laws and resources are inadequate to help them.
“On behalf of women and girls across the U.S. who are affected by forced marriage,” Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s executive director and a forced-marriage survivor, told the group after sharing her story, “I want to thank each one of you in the room today for recognizing our pain and for taking steps to help us.”
The White House meeting was organized by Tahirih Justice Center, which protects immigrant women and girls in the U.S. from gender-based violence. Tahirih pointed out that 12 other countries are ahead of the U.S. in responding to forced marriage, and it urged the federal agencies represented at the meeting to develop and adopt a plan within one year that includes these priorities:
The White House Council on Women and Girls participated in the meeting, along with the National Security Council, Domestic Policy Council and Department of State.
Want to help end forced marriage?
You, too, can join the effort to help end forced marriage in the U.S.
Register now to join a historic Chain-In on April 14 in Union Square (New York City). Survivors, activists and others will stand in chains, with duct tape across their mouths, to show the world what life looks like for the many thousands of girls and women in forced marriages in the U.S.
For other ways to help end forced marriage, visit unchainedatlast.org.
About Unchained
Unchained is the only nonprofit in the U.S. dedicated to helping women and girls leave or avoid arranged/forced marriages. In three years, with an almost all-volunteer staff, Unchained has helped or is helping more than 90 women and girls, and Unchained wrote a bill that was passed into law in New Jersey in 2014.
Al Jazeera America aired a segment tonight about forced marriage, highlighting the little-known fact that it happens in the U.S. – and focusing on Fraidy Reiss, Unchained’s founder/executive director, whose family arranged her marriage in Brooklyn when she was 19.
“In the Orthodox Jewish community being single is considered very shameful ,” Reiss said in the segment. “So it was actually my worst nightmare that I would not be married off by the time I was 19.”
The segment is no longer available for online viewing.
More than 40 attorneys attended today, as Unchained once again gave its popular training course on family law, this time in partnership with Rutgers Institute for Professional Education. The course provided an overview of New Jersey matrimonial law, covering the major steps of the divorce process — from filing the complaint to addressing issues of equitable distribution, child custody, child support and alimony — with a focus on arranged/forced marriage and the legal and ethical issues involved.
*The course fee of $150 was waived for admitted attorneys who committed to representing an Unchained client pro bono as she flees from an arranged/forced marriage. (The course was worth 8 or more CLE credits in New Jersey and New York, and 6.5 credits in Pennsylvania.)
~ Abed Awad, Esq. | Awad & Khoury, LLP | Hasbrouck Heights, NJ
~ Jamie Berger, Esq. | Argentino & Jacobs, LLC | Rockaway, NJ
~ Emily Carstensen, Esq. | Rubenstein, Meyerson, Fox, Mancinelli, Conte & Bern, PA | Montvale, NJ
~ Ellen Gold, Esq. | Attorney at Law | Clifton, NJ
~ Fraidy Reiss | Founder/Executive Director | Unchained At Last | Westfield, NJ
Unchained thanks the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New Jersey for the generous grant that made this CLE course possible.
NEXT COURSE DATE: November 3, 2015
CHECK BACK SOON FOR DETAILS
Meanwhile, click here to apply to join Unchained’s team of Pro Bono Attorneys, which will allow you to take the course for free.
Why should attorneys donate their time?
Attorneys who commit to representing an Unchained client pro bono receive:
~ FREE access to this training course, worth significant CLE credits in NJ, NY and PA ($150 value)
~ Experience in matrimonial law
~ Mentoring from an experienced matrimonial law attorney
~ Valuable networking opportunities
~ Hours of service toward exemption from mandatory pro bono assignments
~ Unchained funds for expert witnesses and other court-related fees
~ The chance to unchain a woman or a girl from a marriage she did not choose
Attorneys with 5+ years of matrimonial law experience also can take advantage of these opportunities:
~ Mentor another attorney (counts in New Jersey as hours of service toward exemption from mandatory pro bono assignments)
~ Present a portion of an upcoming Unchained CLE course (earns double CLE credits in New Jersey)
