Further Reading

Unchained educates the public and policymakers about forced and child marriage in the U.S. through various channels, including presentations, training sessions for key groups, published studies and news media. Below is a list of key resources to learn more about Unchained, its founder/executive director, Fraidy Reiss, and forced and child marriage in the U.S.

Reading list:

• At 19, I was forced to marry a stranger and was sexually assaulted every month for 12 years

  Fraidy writes an essay for HuffPost Personal in which she describes the trauma of being forced to marry, have unprotected sex and become a mother without her consent.

• State and sex-specific trends in the annual incidence of child marriage in the United States since the year 2000

  Unchained’s research on child marriage in the U.S. is once again published in a peer-reviewed journal, this time in the January 2024 issue of Child Abuse & Neglect. Co-authored with Prof. Alissa Koski and Kaya Van Roost of McGill University, the study shows that child marriage remains legal and happening at an alarming rate in most of the U.S. and that, like in other countries, child marriage here reflects a devaluation of girls.

• Child marriage is still legal in California. How could this be?

  Fraidy authors an op-ed for the Sacramento Bee detailing how child marriage is a particularly egregious issue in California and why ending it is crucial.

• Child marriage in the United States: Prevalence and implications

  Unchained’s groundbreaking research on the prevalence of child marriage in the United States is published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, in a supplement alongside other research funded by the Gates Foundation about child marriage globally.

• Child marriage traps girls in an inescapable legal hell. But it is still legal in 46 US states.

  Fraidy authors an op-ed for Insider about Unchained’s new child marriage study, which found nearly 300,000 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 — and 60,000 marriages occurred at an age or age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.

• The book of gutsy women: Favorite stories of courage and resilience

  Fraidy is featured in Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s The Book of Gutsy Women (Simon & Schuster), in which they share the stories of the “gutsy women” who have inspired them — women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions and get the job done.

• Child marriage is still happening in the U.S. & around the world

  Fraidy and Chelsea Clinton call out legislators and some feminists for their refusal to end child marriage in the U.S. in this joint op-ed article published in Refinery29 on International Women’s Day.

• Child marriage isn’t marriage and ‘nearly 18’ isn’t 18 years old

  Why have legislators abandoned 17-year-old girls? In this op-ed article published by The Hill, Fraidy demands answers from lawmakers who have turned their backs on the girls at highest risk of child marriage.

• Let me tell you what forced marriage in America looks like

  Thomson Reuters Foundation News publishes an op-ed article Fraidy wrote about her personal story and her work, through Unchained, to end forced and child marriage in the U.S.

• Despite progress, child marriage is still legal in all 50 states

  Fraidy writes an update for Nicholas Kristof‘s blog in the New York Times, showing that many U.S. legislators still cling to child marriage.

• Why does the United States still let 12-year-olds get married?

  Washington Post publishes Fraidy’s op-ed article about child marriage on the front page of the Sunday Outlook section. The article reveals that nearly a quarter-million children as young as 12 were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010, mostly girls wed to adult men.

• America’s child-marriage problem

  The New York Times publishes Fraidy’s op-ed article shedding light on the U.S.’s dirty little secret: Child marriage, including why and how it happens in the U.S.

 

Viewing/listening list:

• Missing: Donyelle Johnson

  The hosts of the Crime Junkie podcast give Unchained At Last a special mid episode shout-out and sponsorship while discussing child marriage and the horrifying fact that it still exists in the U.S. today.

• The fight to end forced marriage across the U.S. with Fraidy Reiss, Founder/Executive Director at Unchained At Last

  Fraidy joins the hosts of The Girl and the Gov podcast to explain the difference between a forced and an arranged marriage and to answer why only nine — soon-to-be-10 — states have ended child marriage and why it should be a national fight. Plus, she reveals what the people resistant to banning forced and child marriage have to say.

• Unseen Housewives

  In conjunction with healthcare ad agency Area 23, Unchained releases “Unseen Housewives,” its outrageous, provocative “trailer” for a show that must not go on: child marriage in the U.S.

• The Girls You Have Destroyed

  Legislators in the U.S. need to understand the devastation they cause when they refuse to pass simple, commonsense legislation to ban child marriage, which is why the Unchained team wrote The Girls You Have Destroyed, a chilling spoken-word poem and song that explains this to legislators in graphic detail, and perform it at every Chain-In protest to make sure legislators across the U.S. receive the message.

• The frontier on consent

  Population Media Center’s The State of: Women podcast interviews Fraidy as part of their episode on forced marriage and child marriage in the U.S. and how they connect to issues of consent and bodily autonomy.

• Gutsy

  Fraidy is featured in Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s new Apple TV+ docuseries, Gutsy, as one of the “world’s boldest and bravest women” who have made an impact in their community and on the world. Fraidy makes her appearance in the “Gutsy Women Are Rebel Hearts” episode of Gutsy, which examines her escape from an abusive forced marriage and her relentless advocacy to end forced and child marriage in the United States.

• I was a child bride: The untold story

  Journalist Elizabeth Vargas interviews Fraidy about forced and child marriage in the U.S., while four American child marriage survivors share their heartbreaking stories, for this two-hour A&E/Hulu documentary special

• Knots: A forced marriage story

  Knots, a feature-length documentary film from filmmaker Kate Ryan Brewer, premieres at the Omaha Film Festival and is scheduled to screen at several other film festivals around the world. The film follows three forced marriage survivors in the U.S. — including Fraidy.

• She escaped a forced marriage & now helps others do the same

  Andy Levine interviews Fraidy for his Second Act Stories podcast, calling her story “among the most inspiring tales” he’s ever featured on his show.

• Woman

  Woman, from filmmakers Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, makes its U.S. debut in New York City. The sweeping documentary is based on interviews with some 2,000 women around the globe, including Fraidy. In a world where women are forced to marry, deprived of an education, forbidden from going outside on their own and subjected to myriad other abuses, the film is a message of love and hope.

• America’s forced marriage problem

  Fraidy gives a powerful TEDx Talk at TEDxFoggyBottom2018. She explains how her own traumatic experience inspired her to found Unchained to help other women and girls in the U.S. to escape forced marriages.

• Activist Fraidy Reiss on ending forced marriage in America

  In this video op-ed for NowThis, Fraidy explains how archaic legal loopholes allow children in all 50 U.S. states to be forced to marry and what Unchained is doing to change that.