An interview with child marriage activist Fraidy Reiss

People often refer to the United States as the strongest nation on earth, but I find myself questioning who has power in this country. Because when you start to zoom in on certain issues, you realize many issues render individuals powerless, and activism is needed more than ever.

Child and forced marriages exemplify these types of issues. A quarter of a million American children were married by consent of their parents, a judge, or both between 2000 and 2010. Until 2018, child marriage was legal in all 50 states. That year, thanks to the tireless activism of a nonprofit organization called Unchained at Last, together with legislators, two states — Delaware and New Jersey — passed laws explicitly banning the practice.

Unchained at Last was started by Fraidy Reiss, who herself is a forced-marriage survivor. In her widely shared TEDx Talk, where she talks about this awful practice, she candidly talks about her own forced marriage at 19 in a tight-knit religious community and having to eventually escape a violent and abusive situation with her daughters in tow. The work she is doing today is nothing short of heroic. Through Fraidy Reiss, I have learned that real superpowers come from those doing the hard work required to make true and lasting change.

Asha Dahya: When we think of child marriage, we often think of countries across the world, but this is happening in the United States today. Can you give me an overview of the problem?

Fraidy Reiss: Most people, I think, have no idea. Whoever we speak to seems to be shocked by this. Our goal here at Unchained at Last is not only to fight child marriage but also the bigger picture of forced marriage, which can happen to somebody of any age. We do a lot on child marriage because A) it’s easy to define, quantify, and legislate, and B) it’s easy for people to understand why it’s a problem. The bigger picture of forced marriage is a little more complex because no real research has been done in the United States about how often forced marriage is happening.

For a long time, nobody even knew how often child marriage was happening, and we at Unchained at Last changed that. Our groundbreaking research found that between 2000 and 2010 an estimated 248,000 children were married in the United States. They were as young as 12, possibly even younger. When we did this research in 2015, in more than half of the United States, there was no minimum age specified for marriage. And then the other really upsetting data point that we discovered was that almost all of those 248,000 children that were married in that one decade were girls married to adult men.

Why did you start your organization Unchained at Last?

I founded Unchained at Last as a way to help others in the United States who are escaping forced marriages, and it felt really great to be able to take my own trauma and turn it into a way to help others. And then more and more girls under the age of 18 started reaching out to Unchained to ask for help. This was when I realized that this is not only a huge problem because of the fact that it’s legal but what was so horrific was that there was almost nothing we can do to help a girl who is not yet 18 to either say “no” to a marriage that's being planned for her or to escape one that she's already in. Because of the ways the laws are written in most of the United States, there’s almost no recourse for a minor girl that is being forced to marry or has already been married.

If you are 18 or older and you call us at Unchained, the first thing we help you do is to leave home and get to a domestic violence shelter. If you're not yet 18, in most of the United States, you’re considered a runaway. Also, if we help you to leave home before you’re 18, we could be charged. That actually happened in one of the cases that we worked on. One of our volunteers was charged criminally for helping a 14-year-old girl escape. If these underage girls manage to get to a domestic violence shelter on their own, the shelters won’t take them in under the age of 18 because there are all kinds of liability issues and often funding guidelines that prevent them from taking in a child.

Also, you’re typically not allowed to bring any legal action in your own name before the age of 18. It’s usually a parent or a judge or both who enters you into the marriage, and you’re completely voiceless throughout that process if you’re not 18, and you don’t even have the legal right to end that marriage. So marriage before the age of 18 is a trap.

What are some of the most common reasons for child and forced marriage happening in the United States?

There are many reasons. Tradition, whether that’s cultural or religious, is a big one, especially with the forced marriage of adults. That was certainly the case in my family.

The girl who is most vulnerable and at the highest risk for forced child marriage in the United States is a pregnant girl. Parents think it is shameful, or they think the girl is better off if she gets married. Extensive research in the United States shows the opposite. In some cases, a teen girl gets pregnant, and parents want to cover up a rape. They don’t want a “nice guy” going to prison, so the way to make it OK is with a marriage. Often it’s someone who is 16 or 17.

How do victims find out about Unchained?

Most of them hear about us either through word of mouth, through a Google search, or referrals from law enforcement, the State Department, or domestic violence agencies.

The first service that we provide when people reach out is coordinating and implementing escape plans — helping someone leave home and get somewhere safe, like a domestic violence shelter. We also provide free legal representation, whether it’s divorce or domestic violence or any other legal needs that survivors have. We don’t charge for any of our services — that’s all done through our volunteers.

Often the legal needs [forced marriage victims] have are [related to] immigration. Sometimes a person is brought from overseas for forced marriage and doesn’t have legal immigration status. Also, it could be a legal name change. Some women have to change their name legally from a family that refuses to allow them to leave and will continue to search for them and retaliate against them for daring to say no.

Beyond that, it’s also rebuilding your life and becoming financially and emotionally independent. We provide all kinds of social services and emotional support to help mostly women and girls achieve that kind of independence. It’s everything from English as a second language class, driver’s education, or help getting into college.

Tell me about your chain-in events, and what happens at them?

A chain-in is a form of protest that we invented here, where we usually gather between 30 and 50 people. We all wear bridal gowns and veils, and we chain our wrists and tape our mouths, and this is a really powerful way to sho legislators and the world this is what life looks like for a woman or a girl who is forced to marry. It’s a pretty somber experience but an extraordinary feeling standing there knowing you are moving the needle ever so slightly in the direction of gender equality.

It’s hard to ignore a group of chained brides! Apparently, legislators find it easy to discount the heartbreaking testimony of the survivors of child marriage who share their stories. But what you can’t ignore is, on your way to the office, a group of chained brides standing there chanting, "Let’s end child marriage!" And because it often gets a lot of media attention as well, it means not only the legislators passing by the actual protest have that double-take, but also everyone who sees it on TV, hears about it on the radio, reads about it in the newspaper, and sees it on social media.

Is there one particular survivor story that stands out to you?

One of the stories that I do have permission to share is actually about our first client. We’ve got a video of her on our website. She had a very similar story to my own. She was 19 when she was forced to marry. It was a really abusive, terrible marriage. She had two kids and finally got the guts to leave. The family shunned her for daring to leave, like my family did. We helped her get out of a really terrible situation. She was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of breast cancer, and even though she was sick, the family would still not talk to her.

I feel very fortunate and privileged to help her through her really difficult journey, to help her get divorced, to get custody of her children, to help her care for her kids while she was so sick. I was able to babysit them while she had surgery. When she had to go for her treatments, she didn’t have a car, and we were able to get one for her. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, she died. But she was the first person who came to us and trusted us to support her through that. I’ll never forget Jamie.

What are your major goals for the next 10 years with Unchained?

Over the next 10 years, I really hope we can end child marriage in most of the United States and then start focusing on the bigger picture of forced marriage of adults, which is a much more complicated process.

Finally, what makes you a powerful woman?

I guess it’s my relentlessness. There’s a power in refusing to give up and refusing to back down. That’s what got me through difficult times in my life and helped me get out of some really tough situations. It’s also what keeps me going at Unchained at Last.

Sometimes I just want to scream and bang my head against the wall, like “Why can't we just agree that a child should not be forced to marry!” How could you not pass common-sense, simple legislation that harms no one and costs nothing but saves girls’ lives?

There’s a certain relentlessness that’s required to be able to hear a legislator say, like I’ve heard, “What's so bad about a girl marrying her rapist?” A legislator in Nevada actually said that to my face. When you hear these kinds of things, again and again, it’s the relentlessness that makes me get up the next day and still go back and help people.

This interview is an excerpt from Asha Dahya’s book Today’s Wonder Women: Everyday Superheroes Who Are Changing the World, out now Dover Publications/Ixia Press. It features interviews, essays, and profiles of 50 women from around the world who are doing badass, inspiring things.

Asha Dahya is an author, TEDx Speaker, and content creator based in Los Angeles. She is passionate about reproductive justice, religion, and the representation of women. Asha is also the founder of GirlTalkHQ.com.