You can help end forced and child marriage in the U.S. – and have some fun while you’re at it. (Make sure to join the Unchained email list so you’re the first to know about upcoming events.)
Recent events:
- March 14, 2024 | True Crime: Forced Marriage in the U.S. (A CSW68 Parallel Event)
Every year, we host a parallel event to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women – the world’s largest annual gathering on women’s rights. This year, we held a hybrid event at the Church Center for the U.N. and on Zoom, where Ashley Flowers of Crime Junkie led a conversation with American forced and child marriage survivors about how they escaped their nightmare and why they now have partnered with us to make sure the U.S. keeps its promise – under the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals – to eliminate forced and child marriage by year 2030 and help achieve gender equality. - January 18, 2024 | Chain-In Olympia
More than 20 survivors, allies and legislators joined us to stand silently on the rotunda steps in the state capitol, dressed in bridal gowns and chains. Our message was clear: It is time for Washington legislators to pass HB1455 and end child marriage — a human rights abuse that impacted 5,048 children as young as 13 in Washington between 2000 and 2021, mostly girls wed to adult men, in some cases before the girls were old enough to consent to sex. - October 16, 2023 | MOVE Launch Event
We have partnered with Columbia University researchers on Marriage, Orthodoxy and a Vision of Empowerment (MOVE), for a a three-year, survivor-co-led, first-of-its-kind project to study and combat forced marriage, forced marital sex and forced parenthood in the U.S. Columbia’s Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life hosted an invite-only launch event, at which we shared our preliminary findings from our case study of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community and sought input from experts, activists, survivors and other allies. - June 22, 2023 | Chain-In Sacramento
We wore bridal gowns and chains as we gathered outside the California State Capitol to protest child marriage. More than 20 child marriage survivors and allies joined Chain-In Sacramento — made possible by the generous support of the Conboy Foundation — to urge legislators to end a human rights abuse and nightmarish legal trap that destroys girls’ lives. - June 2, 2023 | Emergency Chain-In Hartford
Dressed in bridal gowns and chains, we and our allies gathered at the Connecticut State Capitol to urge Connecticut senators to pass HB6569, the simple, commonsense bill that would end child marriage in Connecticut – and we promised to come back every day until the end of the legislative session, unless they passed the bill. And it worked! Following our Chain-In, we sat in the senate chamber, still in gowns and chains, and watched the senate finally vote UNANIMOUSLY to end child marriage.