Welcome to Policy Matters, a quarterly presentation from Maitri Policy Advocacy, where we discuss public policies that shape the prevention, intervention, and overall attention to domestic violence within our communities.In our third presentation of Policy Matters, we interview Casey Swegman of Tahirih Justice Center on the prevalence of child marriages in the US and learn about the upcoming federal proposal to address child marriages nationally.Casey Carter Swegman is a national expert on serving immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. As the Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center she oversees Tahirih’s state and federal policy advocacy focused on improving protections for immigrant survivors while simultaneously seeking long-term, systemic change. She engages in extensive domestic and international training and outreach and serves as a liaison to local agencies and service providers working to strengthen the capacity of their local community to respond to the needs of immigrant survivors. Before her role as Director of Public Policy, Casey spent over 10 years in direct service with immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking, including at Tahirih on the Forced Marriage Initiative and before that with the International Rescue Committee, where she led a program for refugees arriving with special needs.This episode was curated by the Maitri Policy Advocacy Program and facilitated by Smitha Chandrasekhar. Smitha is a senior at the University of Washington majoring in Biology. She is currently on the pre-med track and intends to focus on a career in women’s reproductive health and oncology. Smitha has been volunteering with Maitri for almost a year and is deeply invested in promoting the rights of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to their own bodies and autonomy.Resources shared in this PodcastChild Marriage Prevention Act of 2024https://www.tahirih.org/news/child-ma...Discussion with Fraidy Reiss, Child Marriage Survivor and founder of Unchained At last   • S5-E1: Unchained At Last: California ...  Asia Child marriage initiative: Summary of the research in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploa...Child Marriage in the UShttps://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/up...UNICEF working to end child marriages in the UShttps://www.unicefusa.org/how-help/ad...California Senate Bill 404 on Child Marriage ban https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB404/id... California Coalition to End Child Marriage https://cacoalitiontoendchildmarriage... It is time to end child marriages in the US https://www.cfr.org/blog/its-time-end.