Author: Andrea Jeglum

Published: Fall 2021

In this article, published in the Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society, the author traces the legal and social history of laws allowing for child marriage in the United States, as well as attempts by states to protect children without fully ending child marriage. She concludes that these efforts to limit child marriage through parental consent or judicial approval conditions have failed, and that the only viable way to address the issue is for each state to set it’s minimum marriage age at the age of majority. Read more.

Authors: Manahil Siddiqi, M.P.H. and Margaret E. Green, Ph.D.

Publication: March 1, 2022

This comprehensive survey of global research into child marriage, conducted in multiple languages, reveals a number of important trends in global efforts to study and address child marriage around the world. In particular the authors find that child marriage is not most-studied in the countries where it is most prevalent – in fact several of the countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage are also among the places where the issue is least studied. Read more.

Authors: Forced Marriage Working Group

Publication: October, 2021

This Framework is the result of months of collaboration and consultation with our partners in the National Forced Marriage Working Group, and is the first document of its kind charting a comprehensive path forward on the issue of forced and child marriage in the U.S. The Framework calls for an intersectional approach to supporting survivors rooted in anti-oppression and anti-racism, increased awareness among service providers, advocates, and policy makers as well as a coordinated whole of government response, dedicated funding streams to enhance programs and services, and support for research and policy change at the state and federal level. Read more.

Dr. Neha Batool highlights the most recent research findings about women’s experiences with forced marriage and identifies the underlying mechanisms that influence the experience of forced marriages. She focuses on women’s psychological wellbeing prior to, during, and after the forced marriage and discusses both short-term and long-term mental health challenges related to attachment styles, identity development, gender socialization, and intergenerational influences.

Hear from author and survivor of an attempted forced marriage, Sumaiya Matin, as she shares her powerful story of resistance, faith, and love. Following a selected reading and discussion of her recently published memoir, Sumaiya will be joined by fellow survivor advocate, Genevieve Meyer, and Tahirih staff member, Casey Carter Swegman, for a discussion about forced and child marriage in the west and what it means to be a survivor advocate.

Speaker Bios

Sumaiya Matin is a writer, part-time social worker/psychotherapist, and advisor for the Ontario government, working on a wide range of public policy files, such as anti-racism public education initiatives, and mental health frameworks. In her part-time counselling practice, she focuses on integrating faith-based, anti-oppressive, and narrative approaches to support women navigating life transitions and personal relationships. As a writer, Sumaiya has a strong interest in exploring fiction and nonfiction genres to raise awareness of complex personal, global, political issues relevant to the modern-day. Her new memoir, The Shaytan Bride, is the true coming-of-age story of a girl navigating desire and faith. Through her journey into adulthood, she battles herself and her circumstances to differentiate between destiny and free will. Sumaiya Matin’s life in love and violence is a testament to one woman’s strength as she faces the complicated fallout of her decisions.

Genevieve Meyer, MBA, is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Resiliency Foundation. She is a survivor advocate and professional expert on child marriage, human trafficking, and building resiliency. Her story and corresponding work has been featured on major media outlets including Red Table Talk, CBSN and NBC. Genevieve is member of several anti-trafficking networks and consults with organizations on ways to address the issues of human trafficking and child marriage in the United States and around the world.

Casey Carter Swegman serves as Interim Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center and Manager of the Forced Marriage Initiative. She is a nationally recognized expert on the issue of forced and child marriage in the U.S. In her role, Casey provides direct social services to individuals facing forced marriages across the U.S., fields technical assistance requests nationally, leads Tahirih’s state and federal policy advocacy on forced and child marriage and chairs the national Forced Marriage Working Group.