After being married off at the age of 19 to an abusive husband by her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family in New York City, Fraidy Reiss vowed to make a difference – and stop child marriage in the United States.
For while campaigners globally are trying to stop child marriage in such places as Africa and Asia, few people realize that child marriage is legal in every one of the 50 U.S. states.
Between 2000 and 2010, about 170,000 children aged under 18 were wed in 38 states where data was available, according to Unchained at Last, a non-profit group set up by Reiss in 2011 to fight child marriage in the United States.
