S5E1: Unchained At Last: California Must Ban Child Marriage!

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 www.maitri.org   This project was made possible by funding provided by the County of Santa Clara Office of Gender-Based Violence Prevention. [www.sccendviolence.org]