America's forced marriage problem | Fraidy Reiss | TEDxFoggyBottom

[Music] [Applause] there's something you need to know about me before I begin I am dead and I know what you're thinking she doesn't look particularly dead right well you might want to tell that to my family they declared me dead 13 years ago when I first took steps to escape the abusive marriage that they had arranged for me and now you're probably thinking oh she's from some remote developing country right actually I'm a born and bred American I grew up in Brooklyn in New York City let's talk about a human rights abuse that many people assume doesn't happen in America let's talk about forced marriage and the insular ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn where I was raised I was groomed basically from infancy to become a wife and a mother I attended an all-girls religious school where I received a limited education that focused on God and cooking and sewing I actually had to sign a paper when I was in high school promising not to take driver's education or college entrance exams yep that's true I was never given the choice of whether to marry that was a given I was never given the choice of when to marry that was going to happen as soon as possible after I finished 12th grade I was told that I had a choice of whom to marry but this so-called choice was limited to the potential matches that the matchmaker brought to my family I got to go on a limited number of so-called dates with my match during which we were never allowed to be alone together or to have any physical contact so I was a clueless teenage virgin who had never before been allowed to talk to a boy and I was given a matter of hours over a period of a few weeks to answer my family and the matchmaker and everyone standing there watching me tapping their feet waiting for me to decide you'll marry this stranger right know was never really an option I was too scared to push back against all that pressure too scared to be the only one of my friends still at age 20 the only one damned to a lifetime of singlehood in a community where being single is considered very shameful so I went along with my engagement at age 19 happily silently I endured a traumatic and I later learned entirely unreliable physical exam to confirm my virginity without complaint I walked down the aisle to my execution wearing a big smile and a god-awful gown let's talk about discovering that your new husband is violent for me it meant cowering and terrified silence the first time he punched his fists through the wall in a blind rage only one week after our wedding the first time he threatened to kill me only days later let's talk about being forced to stay in an abusive arranged marriage in America in my religious community I had no reproductive rights I was not allowed to use birth control and I was required to have sex with my husband my first child was born 11 months after my wedding and pretty soon I had to I had no financial rights I was not allowed to work I was not allowed to maintain my own bank account or credit card I had limited legal rights I was not allowed to divorce my husband under religious law only he could divorce me so really the only way out for me would have been if my family had agreed to take me back in let's talk about betrayal my family refused to take me back in I was trapped in my abusive marriage for 12 years before I managed to overcome my fear and escape with my two daughters I know let's talk about honor violence in America my family punished me for daring to escape by shunning me my parents and siblings that cleared me dead yes shunning is a form of Honor violence and yes honor violence in all forms happens in the United States I want you to try it to imagine the panic you would feel if everyone you loved suddenly cut off all contact with you I rebuilt my life with my two daughters outside of the Orthodox Jewish community a dead woman who was finally alive I went on to found Unchained at last the only organization that's dedicated to helping women in the United States to escape forced marriages will unchanged stay there thank you through Unchained I've been fortunate enough to help hundreds of women from every religion and culture you can think of to overcome their fear and resist or escape forced marriages women like Nina whose experience was eerily similar to my own except she grew up in a conservative Christian family in the Midwest women like Hudson who escaped her own forced marriage only to see her parents take her younger sister overseas to force her to marry we worked with the US State Department to help rescue Hafsah sister and bring her back to safety but then girls as young as 14 started calling on Shane to beg for help and that's how I first realized America has a serious child marriage problem let's talk about child marriage in America marriage before 18 is legal in all 50 US states 23 states don't specify any minimum age for marriage and the federal government is at fault too it doesn't specify any minimum age to petition for a foreign spouse or to be the beneficiary of a spousal or fiance visa think about that you need to be 21 to petition for your parent but you can be eight and petition for the 80 year-old husband you were forced to marry just so he could get his US visa let's talk about the horror that is child marriage fact child marriage often is forced marriage and that's because before a child becomes a legal adult which in almost state happens at age 18 they are nearly powerless to say no to a marriage either before it happens or once they're already in it take Mariana example who asked me not to use her real name she was 17 in 12th grade when she reached out to unchain to ask for help her parents were forcing her to marry I could hear the terror in her voice and I understood that terror her own family had betrayed her but I had to explain to Mario that if she escaped from home because she was not yet 18 she would be considered or run away the police would search for her they would drag her back home they might charge her with an offense for leaving and he might charge me criminally for helping we were both willing to take that chance but there was nowhere for Mario to go we could not find a single domestic violence shelter anywhere in her state that was willing to take her in before her 18th birthday and it gets worse if Maureen's parents had succeeded in forcing her to marry because she was not yet 18 she would not have been allowed to file for a divorce or an annulment unless her parents filed for her we managed to help Miriam escape before she was forced into a marriage and pulled out of high school raped on her wedding night raped repeatedly and trapped in a marriage she didn't want but most of the girls who reach out to unchain to ask for help when they learn of their limited options they ends up trying to kill themselves death seems like the only way out for them here's another fact child marriage destroys girls lives right here in the u.s. marriage before a teen is linked to devastating health consequences including heart attack cancer diabetes stroke almost every psychiatric disorder it means the girl likely will not finish high school let alone college it means a much greater chance of poverty it significantly increases the risk that a girl or woman will be beaten by her spouse the US State Department has called marriage before 18 a human rights abuse and this human rights abuse is legal in all 50 US states and it's happening here at an alarming rate on Shane's groundbreaking research showed that an estimated quarter of a million children at least as young as 12 were married in u.s. just between 2000 and 2010 almost all of them were girls married to adult men let's talk about a simple solution we at unchain started a growing national movement to end child marriage in America we're working to pass simple common-sense legislation in all 50 states and at the federal level to eliminate the legal loopholes that right now allow marriage before 18 but let's talk about sexism and ignorance legislators and state after state have rejected or watered down this legislation and many have insisted that a teenage girl who gets pregnant has no choice but to marry even if she was raped but we're not giving up we are going to continue fighting and pushing until we end child marriage and all forms of forced marriage in America and Beyond and wherever you live I urge you to join the movement please call email and write to your government officials and say let's talk about these terrifying human rights abuses and let's stop them now before they destroy more girls and women's lives you can see that you were inspired to action by a dead woman from Brooklyn who is no longer silent and no longer afraid [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 845,050

Rating: 4.868886 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Global Issues, America, Children, Family, Freedom, Human Rights, Inequality, Law, Local issues, Relationships, Religion, Violence, Women, Women's Rights

Id: 1X1MNvuRpdg

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018

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