As we commemorate the anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), I can’t help but reflect in a few different ways on these past 29 years. First and foremost, […]

On Wednesday, August 15th, Rosie Hidalgo made history by being sworn in as the Director of the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) at the Department of Justice (DOJ)—the first […]

According to recent reports, Texas state troopers have separated at least 26 families at the southern border under Texas’s Operation Lone Star. Texas Governor Abbot continues to exercise inhumane and […]

Asylum is a universal right. Every person should have the chance to seek safety from persecution.   Each year, on July 28, we celebrate the anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, […]

A federal court today blocked the administration’s asylum ban after several immigration advocacy organizations, including the Tahirih Justice Center, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern […]

Tahirih’s interdisciplinary approach to direct services, policy advocacy, and training and education is underscored by the intersection of our clients’ diverse lived experiences. Every individual we serve has multiple overlapping […]

Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed part of a legislative package that will end child marriage in Michigan by setting the legal age for marriage at 18 without exceptions.   When the legislature returns […]

Survivors are the most powerful and effective advocates in the anti-violence and anti-oppression movement. At Tahirih, we believe that survivors should be centered as advocates for themselves, in their families, and in their communities. 

Our Tahirih Houston office has developed an innovative program called Kitchen Table Conversations to build power and create collective action led by immigrant survivors of violence.

Today, Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz signed a bill that ends child marriage in Connecticut by raising the legal age for marriage to 18 without exceptions. This makes Connecticut the 9th state to completely end child marriage and the second state to end child marriage this year, after Vermont.

Connecticut saw over 1,200 children marry between 2000 and 2014, and prior to 2017 had no minimum marriage age. They are now the second state to succeed in an incremental approach to ending child marriage: a 2017 reform setting an age floor of 16 and ensuring universal judicial review cut rates of child marriage in the state by about half, mitigating harm while advocates and legislators continued building support for an end to child marriage this year.

D.C. has not yet joined the 31 states that have passed laws taking aim at child marriage and our laws still allow 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with nothing more than one parent’s signature. It’s time for our city to update our antiquated marriage laws and put the wellbeing of our children first.