But it is indeed occurring in the United States, and “it is a growing problem,” according to Manon DeFelice, executive director of the New York-based AHA Foundation, which protects and defends the rights of women and girls in the West from oppression committed in the name of religion and culture.

Hidden behind the closed doors of urban apartments and suburban houses around the country, hundreds of girls and women are believed to be forced into marriage every year, often too frightened to protest and coerced in ways difficult for authorities to detect.

For some girls nearing high school graduation, the summer school holidays are the most dangerous time of the year. A young woman is sent to visit relatives in her ancestral homeland and arrives to find not only that she’s been engaged to a man she’s never met, but that she is expected to sponsor a U.S. visa for him.

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