Did you know that between 2000 and 2018, an astonishing 23,588 children were married in California alone? This sparks the question as to why it continues and who opposes the reform initiatives.
In 2023, SB404 was introduced by lawmakers to prohibit marriages before the age of 18; however, it was changed to only make it a misdemeanor to arrange non-legally recognized child marriages without actually ending child marriages in California. Passing the Senate, SB404 awaits a vote in the Assembly Committee on Public Safety.
In this podcast, the founder of Unchained At Last (www.unchainedatlast.org), Fraidy Reiss had an insightful discussion with Maitri’s Director of Survivor Advocacy, Zakia Afrin and Senior Manager of Client Services, Jaya Suresh.
Fraidy Reiss is a forced marriage survivor turned
activist. Through Unchained, Fraidy has helped hundreds of survivors
across the U.S. to escape forced marriages, and she now leads a growing national movement to end child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level. Fraidy’s research and writing on forced and child
marriage have been published extensively, including in the New York
Times, Washington Post and Journal of Adolescent Health and
by Oxford Press, making her one of the foremost experts on these abuses in the U.S.
Read More about Fraidy’s Reiss:
https://www.unchainedatlast.org/founder-executive-director/
Relevant Resources on Forced Marriages:
California Senate Bill 404 on Child Marriage ban
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB404/id/2832415
California Coalition to End Child Marriage
https://cacoalitiontoendchildmarriage.org/
It is time to end child marriages in the US
https://www.cfr.org/blog/its-time-end-child-marriage-united-states
Asia Child marriage initiative: Summary of
research in Bangladesh, India and Nepal
https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/PLAN-ASIA-Child-Marriage-3-Country-Study.pdf
#EndDV, #maitripodcast,
#maitri, #Endchildmarriage # Fraidyreiss #unchainedatlast
This project was made
possible by funding provided by the County of Santa Clara Office of
Gender-Based Violence Prevention. [www.sccendviolence.org]
