Hidden Coercion: Forced Marriage In America

What if “I do” isn’t a choice? We sit down with Hellitz Villegas, Project Manager of the Forced Marriage Initiative at the Tahirih Justice Center, to expose how forced marriage operates in the U.S.—and why consent must include the partner, the timing, and the freedom to say no without fear. We move beyond stereotypes to examine the hidden machinery of coercion: family pressure, spiritual manipulation, financial dependence, and the weaponization of immigration status that keeps survivors silent.

Hellitz shares how Tahirih’s integrated model—legal services, social services, and policy advocacy—supports immigrant survivors of gender-based violence while the Forced Marriage Initiative serves people facing forced or child marriage across statuses. We clarify the difference between arranged and forced marriage, trace the links to domestic and sexual violence, and highlight the unique vulnerability window before a ceremony when a survivor senses what’s coming. The conversation covers high-control religious groups, family-based trafficking, and cases where marriage is used to “correct” a survivor’s identity or life choices.

We also dive into child marriage in America: why loopholes still allow minors—mostly girls—to wed adult men, the lifelong consequences of early marriage, and the policy momentum to end it. From local bans to the federal Child Marriage Prevention Act, we explore how closing immigration loopholes and setting a bright-line age of 18 with no exceptions can change lives. Along the way, we name the real barriers to help—fear of deportation, mistrust of systems, and cultural stigma—and share practical pathways to safety, rights, and support.

If you care about consent, community safety, and human dignity, this is a vital listen. Subscribe to the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review with the one policy change you think should happen first. Your voice helps push this movement forward.

Transcript

Content Warnings And Stakes

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics, multiple forms of violence, and identity-based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have lifted specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

3155 are reported every year. Out of that, every 24 minutes, there is a murder. Every five minutes, there is a break. Every 25 minutes, there is a second. Every nine seconds.

Introducing The Tahirih Justice Center

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Forced marriage is often misunderstood and overlooked. At its core, forced marriage is when one or both individuals are married without their full free and informed consent, indicating a violation of fundamental human rights. But the dynamics of forced marriage go deeper, involving family pressure, cultural expectations, and systemic gaps that allow this abuse to persist. Today we'll break down the myths and misconceptions surrounding forced marriage in America, because yes, it happens here, and explore its hidden link to domestic and sexual violence. More than a cultural issue, forced marriage is a form of gender-based violence that strips individuals of autonomy and safety. Today, Halitz Vieta's forced marriage initiative project manager at Calade Justice Center exposes the biases that hinder awareness and response, leaving survivors isolated and unsupported. In this episode, we will challenge stereotypes, uncover the realities, and amplify the voices of those working to end forced marriage and protect human rights. Feliz Viegas is the forced marriage initiative project manager at Capraid Justice Center, a national nonprofit that serves immigrant survivors fleeing gender-based violence, offers legal and social services to those survivors, provides technical assistance and training, and engages in system change advocacy to both address and prevent violence. In her role, MITS VAGAS provides direct services to individuals in the United States facing or fleeing forced marriage, responds to requests for technical assistance nationally, conduct education and outreach, and helps to craft policy solutions. Prior to joining Tahara, Ms. Viegas worked with survivors of sexual thought and domestic violence as a hotline advocate with the Women's Center of Jacksonville, Florida's rape recovery team. In addition, she held several pissens with Hubbard House, a domestic violence center in Jacksonville, where she facilitated support groups that conducted intakes for children, and served as a resident advocate in the Hubbard House Emergency Shelter, providing care to shelter residents and responding to crisis calls on the hotline. Ms. Viegas is also an experienced criminal court victim advocate, assisting clients with intake protection orders and relocation, as well as providing external referrals. Elise, welcome to the great to be here. I'm glad to be with you, and this is a really interesting topic because our focus today will be to unpack the phenomenon of forced marriage in the United States, a topic that we do not typically hear that much about. But as this conversation will reveal, it remains a troubling issue that continues to impact many women across the country. So let's set the table with an understanding of the work you are doing in this area. Could you please tell us what Tahara means, the story behind the name, and the work that the Justice Center does.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Of course. Thank you again for having me. I'm Halitz Videga. She, her, I manage the Forced Marriage Initiative at the Tahara Justice Center. And we'll I know we'll talk a bit more about what the program specifically does, but I love to share more about Tahare and answer that question about the name of our organization. And so we are named after Tahare, who is and was a prominent figure in the Baha'i faith. Tahere was a leader, an organizer, a well-known poet, and overall is an example of women's strength and the ability to stand up to oppression. And so our name is powerful and it's a reminder of our Baha'i-inspired values that our organization was founded upon. And these are values that are centered around the belief that we are one in our humanity. And that is what leads the work of the Tahari Justice Center.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Beautiful story, and thank you for that background. Who does the center advocate for and what do those demographics look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah, thank you. And I'd say we advocate for everyone, but our bulk of our work is really on immigration law, and it involves direct representation for the protection of immigrant survivors of human trafficking or maybe folks who are being persecuted, right? And this includes protections to immigrant survivors of violence that happens right here in the United States at the hand of their U.S. citizen spouse. And so when you're thinking about Tahara, you can think about that direct legal representation that we do in-house. We have five offices spread across the country: an office in California, in Texas, in Georgia. I am based out of our Virginia, DC area, and we also have an office in Baltimore. And alongside our direct staff, we have a wonderful and powerful team of pro bono partners that help us maximize our reach to immigrant survivors, while at the same time we also have a social services team in-house, which we hope supports our clients in truly being able to receive wraparound services. And so when you're thinking about Taharay, you should think about our expertise, serving immigrant survivors of violence, providing that legal representation, our interdisciplinary model, which means that we work alongside our social services team to support those who we serve. And lastly, which I haven't named, is our policy advocacy, which works on passing laws, establishing regulations, enhancing public understanding of issues that impact immigrant survivors, typically issues around gender-based violence. And hopefully all of this together leads to some systemic change.

Statistics And Climate Of Fear

SPEAKER_00 7:06

That's amazing. Now, the data from the center reveals that 72% of abusive partners fail to give their spouses legal immigration status. One out of five immigrant women cite fear of immigration as a reason for staying, and that five years is the time many immigrant women and girls wait for a hearing in U.S. immigration court. These situations all happen as we exist in a very hostile and polarizing climate related to immigration and citizenship in the United States right now. Could you expand on these statistics and share with us how this volatility impacts the way survivors seek help and services?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I will try because that is a lot to unpack in just a few minutes. But I will start by naming because I think I would be doing a disservice to those who we serve by not starting that answer by naming that immigrant survivors are some of the strongest, courageous, and resilient individuals that I have ever worked with. And while I know the bulk of this conversation and this answer is truly focused on abuse and the trauma they endure, I have to uplift that they carry much more than that trauma and abuse with them. There's history, there's language, there's culture, there's pride, there's strength, and there's so much more. And I have to name that because we are in a climate where it's so easy to dehumanize or to other rise, if that's a word, to just look at your neighbor and find a way to just blame someone else for what may be going wrong in your life, whatever that may be. And I think it's really important to remember that we are talking about people. We are talking about folks who have complex families, just like we all do. We all have values, we all have beliefs, regardless of where we come from. And I just think it's really important to remember we're talking about mothers, about fathers, about children. And it is our belief that we all, including immigrant survivors, deserve to live lives that are free of abuse. As I attempt to answer your question briefly, I'll start by the basics. Individuals who perpetrate abuse use whatever they can to uphold their power and control. And we know that it's the very core of violence is rooted in that oppressor holding whatever power they think they have over that other person. In this case, we're talking about intimate partner violence or domestic violence. And so using immigration status as a tool to continue to harm that partner, to continue to harm children, that's nothing new. It's been done. It is part of the tactics that are used in domestic violence. Now, the US immigration system, it's always been complex. I think what your question was alluding to is that now we are seeing policies regularly changing. We are seeing folks truly having more fear, fear leaving their home, fear of their kids going to school. We are seeing systems that are supposed to be safe for all, such as police, being coupled with immigration enforcement. And that leads to folks feeling that they do not have a safe place to turn for refuge, for support, which then emboldens abusers, right? So that person that already was an abuser now feels even more empowered to uphold that their status or the lack of obtaining status for their partner or their children, and that victim doesn't necessarily see a place that they can go to for help. And we also embolden just bad actors altogether. And so if calling 911, for example, when you are being abused, when your children are being abused, could put an immigrant survivor at risk of deportation, and we've seen that happen, then if an emergency is happening, and more often than not that domestic violence is a woman, that woman may not feel like she can call anyone, right? And that is unacceptable. We're making victims face truly impossible decisions during an already extremely dangerous time. And so it's a really tough place to be in right now as we think about all the doors that are being closed on immigrant survivors.

Human Rights, Dehumanization, And Safety

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, very complex situation here in the United States, further complicated by ICE and other legislation that has come down in the past year in 2025. You mentioned the word dehumanization, and I want to circle back on that. Can you talk to us about why immigrant individuals who are being subjected to gender-based violence or exploitation deserve protection and how dismissing this protection affects everyone. In particular, there are laws about human rights. That should be taken into consideration even if a person is in this country and is not a citizen of the United States, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for highlighting this piece because it is a constant that we are seeing in our work, in our own communities, this idea that but not even an idea, just the fact that folks are being talked about as if they weren't people, as if they weren't human. And when we're talking about immigrant survivors specifically, we're talking about people, people who have survived abuse, people who have a right to their day in court, who have a right to be heard. And I believe that protecting immigrant survivors helps all survivors. We know that across the board, when one survivor feels they are too afraid to come forward, when they are too afraid to report crime, when they're too afraid to ask for help, when they're too afraid for their children or their community, that community as a whole is now less safe. We are essentially protecting the individual who is the abuser or that perpetrator. When an abuser feels like they can target immigrant women and immigrant girls with impunity, when they can leverage immigration status against them to keep them silent, they feel emboldened to call, as you mentioned, immigration enforcement on that survivor to use that as punishment, to use that as a way for that survivor and then other immigrant survivors, and I would say other survivors, to then be further and further pushed into the shadows, which is truly a tragedy. It's really undoing decades and decades of work in the movement to end gender-based violence. Many folks already feel a fear interacting with systems, right? And now when you couple this lack of safety to the inability to now call for help, to the inability to be able to reach out to public agencies because you fear that you're going to be treated inhumanely, continue this unfair treatment, it's again pushing people further and further into the shadows. And so I would say that not addressing gender-based violence affects people with status and without status alike. And the more that we can serve and ensure that folks have the access to their rights that they truly deserve, access to being able to go to court to an attorney, to safe shelter, to call for help, then we're opening the doors to other survivors, regardless of status, to be able to also come forward and to be able to use the systems that we hope are truly helpful safe systems.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

That's very helpful context because these are human rights violations that occur within these situations. So there are many layers to what's happening with immigrants who are also experiencing intimate partner violence. You said the word barriers. Could you describe what some of those barriers are and some of the inherent complexities that both service providers and survivors encounter in these situations?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Oh, definitely. I think we've already named some, and if I could expand on the previous question, I think it'll likely help here as well. You asked earlier about folks' ability to seek protection in the United States. And I think it's important that we help folks understand that people come to the US for a lot of different reasons and that being undocumented in the United States is actually not a crime. It is a civil legal issue. Many, including those who we serve at the Tahari Justice Center, are fleeing life-threatening persecution, abuse, and violence. And whatever the reason for coming to the United States, the Constitution does name that regardless of where folks were born, they have a right to their humanity. I think that's something really dutiful. There's a lot of humanity in our actual constitution. A lot that I think is being lost during this current climate that folks should be reminded of, that folks have a right to due process, they have a right to their day in court and the right to pursue relief, such as the T visa for survivors of trafficking, BAWA, asylum. Uh and when we shut the door to being able to call for help, whether that's 911, whether that's police, whether folks are not able to safely go to school or the library or seek medical care, we're again placing more barriers on a group of folks who already have barriers to begin with. And I think we can't and we should not forget that again, being undocumented is not a crime. It's a civil legal issue. And we have to remember again, although we're using the word immigrant, we are talking about people. And I think the more that we can name folks as people, the I hope we can remember our humanity and theirs.

Barriers To Help And Due Process

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Absolutely. I would hope the same. Now we've set the table for the climate of what people experience in the United States when they come here as an immigrant and potentially are in a domestic violence situation. And I want us to now look at forced marriage specifically in these types of cases because that's the work that you've been doing at the Justice Center. So as project manager of the initiative, what does your role entail? What does your multifaceted approach consist of, and how would you describe a typical client? Another loaded question.

The Forced Marriage Initiative’s Scope

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I will start just by helping us to shift a little bit because I named the bread and butter of Taharay is that immigration legal relief. We are known in this country as an organization. We've been around for over 28 years, really focused on immigration policy and advocacy and that direct representation. I'm naming that again because my project actually is different. It's a very unique piece of Tahari in that we actually are serving folks who do have lawful status. And as you think about the program that I'm specifically naming, I am speaking about individuals who are facing the threat of a forced marriage, who are impacted by a forced marriage, or who have been impacted, or fear they will be impacted. But the people who I'm actually working with or who my program is serving actually do have status. And I think that's really important as we unpack what What forced and child marriage looks like in the United States. Now, yes, someone can be an immigrant survivor also at risk of a forced marriage. And if someone is working with or is an immigrant survivor needing support because they fear a forced marriage and need immigration services, Tahere is still the place that they can go to for help. Okay. But if someone is facing a forced marriage and they're not needing immigration support, the forced marriage initiative, a program of Tahare, is the place that they would go. And I want to make that distinction because there's a big misconception that folks just believe that forced marriage is a foreign issue, is something that happens in the world, but we forget that the US is part of that world, right? And it happens right here, and it happens also to folks who may or may not have some sort of immigrant connection. And I think that's really powerful to name as we demystify what a forced marriage is. Now we'll answer your question, which was what is the forced marriage initiative? I believe you asked, and what does the day-to-day work look like? And so the forced marriage initiative is a program at the Tahari Justice Center that began around 2011, and it began as a response to the fact that our organization was getting calls from service providers, think caseworkers, shelter advocates, other attorneys, law enforcement, social workers, counselors, teachers, who were encountering the issue of forced marriage and they did not know where to turn. And so because Tahare was known, given the first case that really made our organization be an organization, the case of Fazia Kazinga, which involved Fazia fleeing her home country because of forced marriage and female general cutting, we were known already in this space as folks who knew or could work on the issue of forced marriage. But what we noticed back then in 2011 is that folks were calling us, but they weren't looking for immigration services. And so that led to the team back then to do some surveys, inquire further, and from there we learn that forced marriage and child marriage was an issue right here in the United States, and that folks were still impacted by this type of abuse, even if they did have stable status. We work with individuals of all ages, of all backgrounds, who have stable status and are impacted some way, shape, or form by the issue of forced marriage. So that's the program. What the day-to-day looks like. It looks like our program associate working directly as the case manager or victim advocate or liaison for every person who connects with us for help and support. It looks like me working with other organizations or third parties to ensure that they understand how forced marriage is connected to other forms, what other types of violence maybe make better known, and so how those are connected. And over the last two years, my work has also been very focused on a project funded by the Office on Violence Against Women to train and provide technical assistance on the issue of forced marriage and how it does intersect with the VAWA crime. So in thinking of forced marriage and domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, and dating violence to name a few.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, it's definitely manipulation. You touched on this a little bit trying to get a working definition of forced marriage. I wonder if you can give us a more precise definition of what that means and who may fall victim to that within the United States. I can think of a couple of examples. For instance, I've interviewed survivors of couple sex where experiences of forced or arranged entitled marriages are I don't know if I call them common, but they happen. But can you just help us with the definition and maybe some other scenarios?

Force vs Arranged Marriage And Consent

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Yeah, definitely. I really appreciate you naming that clear example of of cults. I think that is a great example that folks can better wrap their heads around, especially when from the trainings that I've done, often folks have a very biased view of what a victim of forced marriage looks like. I I think just the words forced marriage makes us immediately think about something that's been arranged when that's not the case. And so at the Tahere Justice Center, we define a forced marriage as a marriage where one or both people do not or cannot consent to marriage. And typically we are naming or seeing elements of force, elements of fraud, and elements of coercion. At the Tahere Justice Center, we do not equate a forced marriage with an arranged marriage process. We believe that an arranged marriage is a process where families could take the lead, but there's still choice and that ultimate choice remains with the individual. Now, like many other forms of abuse where we can see there's ebbs and flows, yes, some situations that may have begun as an arranged process may become forced whenever we see that consent is being dismissed, or perhaps the person agreed to the family being involved, but they did not agree to the timing. Maybe they were told they could wait until college and now the family's moving forward with plans and they are in high school, right? So we can see there's a shift that has happened, right? And so when we talk about consent in marriage, we mean across the board. It's to the person that they're being married to or they're marrying, it's the timing, it's even the idea of marriage. Some people don't want to get married, and so it should be yes across the board without fear. That is key. If you fear expressing yourself, if you fear there's going to be a negative consequence, then as service providers, we need to explore that a bit deeper to better understand well why why and where is that fear coming from? That's what that looks like in the United States. I am proud to say that we take an approach where we are regularly working and discussing this issue with members of the forced marriage working group, with which the Tahari Justice Center chairs survivor advocates, survivors, our own clients to ensure that we are naming this appropriately. And that distinction between a force and a range is really key in making sure that we're not overlooking in one demographic and underlooking in another. When you think about who could be a victim, the reality is that forced marriage happens because families use marriage as a tool of power, of control. And so it really depends on what is that trigger for your family that may lead them to using marriage as a tool. You mentioned cults. Often there is some sort of maybe even like religious component in cults, or maybe in some very extreme fundamental Christian groups. I've had several clients who have named that they always were told they would have to marry within the church, and they were always told who they would marry. And this idea of also like spiritual abuse and marriage and that manipulation being coupled together.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Yeah, it's like a weaponization of your religion against you. Exactly, exactly.

Family Control, Trafficking, And Religion

SPEAKER_01 29:12

And then we've also seen folks who have a complete different experience in which their families are essentially using marriage as a form of family perpetrator trafficking, right? Using marriage as a way to perhaps have some sort of financial gain. Maybe they are not necessarily the best parents, right? Maybe they do not want to care for their child and they are essentially selling them off to someone else and using marriage to do so. Not every case has those dynamics, but I think it's important to name as we think about these common forms of abuse, like trafficking. I think people have a better idea of what that looks like, or as we think of domestic violence or family violence. We're talking about your family using a coercive tactic to get you to comply to something that you see as abusive, right? To get you to comply to a life that you do not want. And that is why it's really important to understand that forced marriage is a form of abuse. Marriage is not just about signing a paper, it's about everything that it entails, what it means, where you will go to live, the acts within that marriage that you will be forced to do. And so now we're also talking about sexual violence. And even in sexual violence, I've seen some families that use marriage as a tool to, again, I'm gonna put in quotes, correct what they see as wrong when their daughter, adult or not, has been maybe sexually assaulted. And in a way, they truly may feel they're doing the right thing. Let's m get her married because she's been assaulted. We have to protect the fact that she's no longer pure. And then again, marriage being used as a tool, right? So as we think about forced marriage, we have to think about the typical power and control dynamics that occur in domestic violence situations, and then we really focus or have a magnifying glass on what is your specific family like looking at, right? Or what are they triggered by? What is it? Is it that they don't believe that you as a woman should continue your education? Is it that they don't believe that your gender identity is what it should be, and they're using marriage as a way to again, quote unquote, fix what they think is wrong. Is it that something has happened or you are coming out of the fold of the religious group and they're using marriage to keep you and bring you back? And so I think when we break it down in that way, then it's easier for folks to understand the the concept of forced marriage and to understand how it does occur in the United States, like any other type of abuse.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Yeah, that was super helpful context for all of this and really paints a picture of what this is about. In my mind, just listening to all of those examples, forced marriage sounds like a very archaic topic or a very archaic idea. I mean, it's actually been going on for centuries. You can point to places like England, for example, in order to increase landholdings and improve and secure bloodline they would marry off their daughters when they were born, practically, right? Or offer their hand in marriage when they were born, and that's the dead deal. And she has no say in it. Would you say that victims of forced marriage are more or less women or girls, and what age groups would that affect? And does the line blur between forced marriage and child marriage at some point?

Gendered Impact And Health Consequences

SPEAKER_01 32:50

A great question, and thank you for that example because it's exactly right. It's been used as a tool when it depends, right, on the family game. You mentioned land, I mentioned working with individuals whose parents essentially did not want to keep taking care of them. I mentioned the sexual violence component and parents feeling like they're doing the right thing, the spiritual manipulation that we both have discussed. And so I think these are great ways for folks to better understand this concept. When I'm speaking about forced marriage, I am speaking about a type of abuse, regardless of age, where marriage is used again as that tool. There's force or fraud or coercion, and marriage is being used as a way of upholding that power in control. When you think about a marriage where someone is being forced, there's already a great deal of power imbalance within that marriage, right? And we can think about well, that power imbalance is likely going to lead to future violence within that household. There's expectations within the marriage and so on. Now, when you ask the question, who does forced marriage impact the most gender-wise? I think that it's important to remember that divorced marriage is upheld by patriarchal values similar to domestic violence or other forms of abuse. And these are concepts that are typically viewed as gender-based violence because disproportionately in women, girls, or individuals who are outside of what is the norm in the gender spectrum are targeted. When I think about the issue of forced marriage, I I have to name that there is also this element of potential unwanted pregnancy that occurs, multiple pregnancies. Often the women or the girls are the ones that have to leave and go live in the household of that married spouse. And so there is a a difference in the health impacts that I am seeing for individuals who may not identify as a woman or girl. But it is something that can impact men and boys, and I certainly have seen men and boys be married for their labor. Again, if we're thinking now of like trafficking situations, families who name, you know what, the time has come, you're old enough. It is time for you to take over the house, and you have to be married. So I certainly see this issue impacting individuals at all levels, but I have to emphasize women, girls, and folks who may not identify in the gender spectrum as what their families may not view them as correct and using marriage to try and correct what they see as wrong. And of course, they have their own set of complex trauma and and things that they do experience. And so it's an issue that can impact anyone. And we have served, I believe, over 2,000 individuals directly on the issue of forced marriage, regardless of age. And so they could have been children, they could have been impacted as but just strictly thinking about our program, we have served well over 2,000 individuals. The majority have been women or girls, or they have identified as women or girls, but we s also have worked with individuals who are non-binary, trans, and identify as men or boys. And that's what I'm seeing. And I'm seeing a lot of health impacts, but specifically for women and girls, individuals who can become pregnant and are forced to have children, those individuals have some greater health risks.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think that's really remarkable. And just like domestic violence, it disproportionately impacts women and girls. That does not mean that men cannot fall victim to forced marriage or child marriage. And this may be a really good point to tie forced marriage back into our earlier conversation about immigration status, because immigration status can be weaponized to coerce someone to marry someone. It could be a young woman or girl here in the United States, for example, who is a United States citizen and her family set well. And there could be a candle how to weaponized immigration status to force marriage. It reminds me of the movie Green Card, which is kind of 90%. Now it's a very more like hard. And it certainly did not in any way appear to be about forced marriage or child marriage, these are two adults. But it's just one type of example where you can at least lightly see the way that providing immigration status can be weaponized or used for one's benefit.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Definitely. Not necessarily as forced marriage, but I think it is an example of how if that person was abusive, they could have held that status over over the head of the other character and perhaps forced them to commit crime, perhaps forced them to do things they did not want to do. Maybe they never completed or properly filed the documentation. And so I think it's a if we think about if that person was an abuser, then you can see the power that they truly had over the applicant.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

But it's interesting that you say that because in a way, the way that the film starts out is Gerard DePurdue's character is trying to get Eddie McDowell's character to marry him. So he could get a green card. And that in itself is somewhat coercive. It's a very lighthearted look at it, but down deep aside, they wind up falling in love with saying married is further out. But down to the side, he was trying to trap her. Manipulation was at the root of that. Situation in the beginning, and he was trying to trap her to marry him.

Immigration As Leverage And Child Brides

SPEAKER_01 40:04

That's a good example of when folks think about, well, how can an adult be forced to marry? And when you think about the connection perhaps of forced marriage and dating violence, and thinking about someone who perhaps is dating but for other reasons, that they have maybe they have their own ideas as to what they want this relationship to look like and what they're going to gain from it, I could see how that connection is made. I also want to name this piece when you named immigration, sadly, and bringing this back down to child marriage, we have seen thousands of cases of US adults, mostly men, bringing in girls, and by girls by dooming children as their spouse. Child brides. Exactly. What we typically would say child bride, right? And so this ability of being well into your sixties or fifties, and you are able to bring someone over as for whatever, you know, rainbows and unicorns you may paint for their family and for them, that you're going to care for them, whatever it may be. And now again, you see this super difficult power imbalance. And when you think about being a child, and being a child now in a foreign land, and then you add the complexities of what we named earlier, right? Your inability to call systems, your inability to connect to services, you may not even know that these exist anyway. And then you learn about them in this climate of fear, and in this climate where you are being arised, it's really giving that US citizen a lot of power over that child and over that the status of that child and whatever happens to them. And that is lawful power, right? They're being they I'm not talking about someone who is in the country documentation. I'm talking about a US citizen sponsoring over an individual. I think it's really important that when we're thinking about immigration, when we're thinking about everything that we could do, if we center survivors, if we center their experience, we could hopefully get a lot done that then impacts the most vulnerable, hopefully, to the best of change.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yeah, when I hear you talk about that, it makes me think of over the years I've read a lot about men bringing in women from Eastern Europe for love and marriage and all the finer things in life. And then these women are completely reliant on the stand that has brought them to the United States without them that they're just going back to the life of effects that they had before back to their home country. And so it's extremely beneficial and dangerous effects. And I point to it. This is another example for listener tools are trying to make sense of the title that we've created for them around understanding the weapon. And forcing someone into a marriage that they do not want yet cannot say no to. You could be legally an adult in the United States at 18 years old, but still not know really very much about being an adult and how to adult and handle yourself. And by your parents, you are now marrying this person. There's a lot of fear there for many kids or teens in the group of taking out for defying your parents or boosting the relationship with your family if you do take out or walk away. I just point that out that you don't have to be 15 years old to get trapped in a situation like this because it could happen to people who are legally considered adults that really do not know how to manage this type of situation.

Adult Vulnerability And Child Marriage Laws

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Most definitely. You gave such a great example. Nothing happens magically to our brain when we become a lawful adult. In the US, typically that's 18, not every state, but let's just say 18 as an example. And nothing happens to you, but you do gain the rights of an adult. And I want to name that because as we're thinking about forced marriage, it has isn't lost on me that we haven't gone into explaining child marriage a bit deeper. And I want to make sure that we do that. When again, when I say forced marriage, I mean a marriage that is forced, meaning regardless of age, regardless of a status, regardless of the person's identity, the marriage itself is forced, they cannot consent, there is potentially forced, maybe there's fraud, there's some sort of coercion. When I'm speaking about or use the terms child marriage, I am talking about someone who is a child. I am talking about someone who is not an adult. And I think it's really important to understand that in the United States, every single state governs marriage laws. And not every state is an 18, no exception state, meaning that you have to be 18 to marry and that's it. The states range and what we know since we've done work in this movement on forced marriage, specifically working with individuals directly, right? As like their advocate, their case manager, we have seen that serving children has been some of the most difficult in the cases to work because often we're talking about their parents, those who are their guardians, as the ones who are perpetrating or who are the pushers for the forced marriage, but they are their children. And if there aren't other types of often visible abuse occurring, it is really tough for the systems that are set to work with children to figure out what to do. It's even tougher when that child says, I know something is going to happen to me because this is how marriage takes place in my community or in my cult or in my religious group. And it's really tough for folks who are not well versed on these issues to not see it as, well, that's just a family thing. And that is so wrong. But it's the same thing we used to be told, I hope used to, when it comes to domestic violence, that things have to be kept in-house. But sadly, again, children, they do not know their rights and options, and even when they do, they are so brave and they bring up what they fear, the systems may not be s readily set to protect them. And their families may not necessarily be doing anything that's seen as unlawful. And so I do want to name that since 2000 we know that over 200,000 minors have been married in the United States, and most of them were girls marrying adult men, and in some of those situations, we saw men that were decades and decades older than that girl. And so I think it is very important that we're not going to be able to And they were legal marriages? Correct. Now was there forced in any of those marriages? I don't know, because when we look at marriage records, we don't have a box that says, what's this person forced? We just know their ages. Right, right. So we can say, right, that they were a child. I have no way to know how many of those marriages were forced, but what I can say is that there's a great deal of power and balance. I can say that the an adult has greater access to resources than a child. I can say that there could have been some coercion, some other vulnerability. In some states, there could be maybe exceptions for marriage to occur because they were pregnant. In some states, maybe only one parent has to consent and not both. And so I can't say that all those marriages were abusive. I I honestly can't. But what the data shows me is that there's some serious predatory behavior and likely exploitation. And I know that also because I know from my work that there's lifelong consequences to girls marrying when they are children, even if they are doing it consensually. They have a greater vulnerability to domestic violence, to sexual violence, an increased risk of medical and mental health problems. They have higher dropout rates. Again, their risk of poverty, the divorce rates are so much higher. And although I can't say that every single one of those marriages was forced, I suspect that there is a great deal of negative consequences for those girls.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I would also follow that lead and suspect that the majority of them had some type of coercion involved. So you mentioned laws. What are some strides or recommendations you've made in the policy space on this issue?

Policy Momentum And Prevention Window

SPEAKER_01 50:14

No, thank you so much. I'm very excited to work in a program where we are working in the movement to end child marriage in the United States and that we do this work in coalition. We do this work emphasizing bipartisan support when that's possible, centering survivors working alongside survivors. For example, Donna Pollard, who is working with the Rise Coalition in Kentucky to end child marriage in Kentucky, and that's coming up hopefully next year. Recently we saw DC ban, officially end child marriage, and that partnership with local coalition as well as survivors speaking up for the end of child marriage in DC was really powerful. And again, I appreciate the way that we work with local individuals who know their state, their areas best, as well as survivors who can share their own story and give that testimony. And a big shout out, I would say, is the Child Marriage Prevention Act, which was introduced by Senators Durbin, Gillibrand, and Schatz, and it's a comprehensive bill that would close the loopholes in marriage-based immigration system that we talked about. It would close these loopholes that allows for foreign-born girls to be brought to the US and exploited under the guise of marriage, often by those much older American men. And it would also put an end to American children being married off solely by immigration purposes. And while it also incentivizes states to ban child marriage, and I'm just very excited to see this Child Marriage Prevention Act be reintroduced, and I hope that we get to really put the US on the right path to end child marriage, which hopefully also means a greater understanding and support for individuals who are impacted by forced marriage. And again, recognizing that gender-based violence can impact folks of any age, of any background. And these issues, they don't just happen on their own. They do happen alongside other forms of abuse. And we do have to be prepared to support survivors, to support them when they come forward, when they know something is going to happen. That it's such a unique place to be in. When someone hasn't been forced already, when they haven't been assaulted sexually, when they haven't been physically abused by their partner, but they know it's going to happen. That is such a unique moment of prevention. And I really hope that us in the movement to end gender-based violence can continue to recognize that forced marriage is part of the movement as well. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to uplift this issue. And I'm happy to connect more. Our website is preventforced marriage.org. We also have more on child marriage policy, tahari.org backslash child marriage. There's a ton of research there. We even have a table that breaks down every single state and tells you exactly what the marriage policy is and looks like. And if folks are interested in working alongside us, other survivors, just reach out. We're happy to connect you, happy to work together. And if folks are looking for more training, I'm also happy to do that too. So again, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate being able to highlight this issue that's happening right here in the U.S. And I hope that we can put an end as end alongside other forms of gender-based violence and that we can humanize all the folks who are survivors of gender-based violence.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Absolutely. Halitz, thank you so much for talking with me today and for the amazing work that you do.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Learn more at conference.org. And be the first NFL Conference C Calcets at California Center Institute for Coordinated Community Context.