Over the past 15 years, we have been privileged to help over 14,000 immigrant women and children receive legal protection, rebuild their lives, and restore their dignity.

Although many Americans may think that phenomena such as forced marriages and so-called “honor killings” exist only overseas, social service agencies, educators, and a growing number of law enforcement personnel know differently.

For many of us, reports on women and girls being threatened with violence and forced to marry seem distant and incomprehensible.

In the past decade, several new laws have allowed abused foreign-born women, including those who entered the United States illegally and those whose immigration status depends on their spouse, to obtain legal residency on their own.

Forced marriage and honor violence are often viewed in the West as backward customs relegated to impoverished developing nations. But a spate of gruesome honor killings in the U.K., and new research about the prevalence of underage marriage in the U.S., for the first time show that this kind of violence against women is far more widespread.

Do something! That’s what the courageous women activists and leaders urged at the launch of the Women in the World Foundation in Manhattan on Tuesday.

For women and girls like Tahirih’s clients, it is not enough to have just any attorney. Their unique gender-based violence cases require attorneys who are well-versed in both sensitive cultural issues and the extremely complicated and often unexplored territory of gender-based immigration law.