From 18 to 9: practically there half the years to give one’s consent to a marriage. It happens in Iraqwho is already an ace when it comes to child marriage, and who is now ready to pass a law that would lower the legal age of consent from 18 to 9, in fact, allowing men to marry young girls.
The conservative Shiite groups that dominate the Iraqi parliament have in fact proposed an amendment to the “Personal Status Law” of the country which could see a Taliban-style rollback of all women’s rights.
The Personal Status Law was passed in 1959, shortly after the fall of the Iraqi monarchy, and sparked a revolution in the protection of women’s rights. Even considered one of the most progressive in the Middle East (it was the result of negotiations within the nascent Iraqi state between groups of women and anti-imperialist factions, who mobilized against the vestiges of British colonial rule), it regulates issues relating to marriage, divorce , custody of children and inheritance for Muslims in Iraq and ratified the transfer of jurisdiction in family matters from religious authorities to the State and its judicial system.
And that law is a fixed law the legal age of marriage to 18 and limits the practice of polygamy.
But now, based on the amendment proposed by the coalition of conservative Shiite parties, “adult Muslims” who wish to get married could choose to rely on the rules of Shia Sharia or Sunni on family law. This could have serious consequences in terms of inheritance, but also in terms of custody of children in the event of divorce and, as feared, will abolish the minimum age of marriage for Muslim women.
This amendment is the latest in a series of attacks by some Iraqi political leaders against women’s rights and gender equality issues. They have already succeeded in criminalizing homosexuality, banning the use of the word “gender” and blocking the passage of a domestic violence bill.
28% of Iraqi women were married before the age of 18
Although Iraq has banned marriage under 18 since the 1950s, a survey by the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, found that 28 percent of girls in Iraq married before in any case to reach the age of 18.
As of 2021 the Iraqi political system is dominated by the Coordination Framework, a political coalition of Iran-aligned factions and according to a 2021 report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), 22% of unregistered marriages involved girls under 14 years old.
Unregistered marriages also have extremely harmful effects on women and girls’ ability to obtain government services, register the births of their children, and assert their rights. Without a civil marriage certificate, women and girls cannot give birth in hospitals, which – of course – is in itself a barrier to healthcare.
To date, the current personal status law applies to all Iraqis, regardless of their religion. The proposed amendment would instead guarantee to the religious councils of the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam in Iraq the authority to develop their own “code of Sharia rulings relating to personal status” within six months of the law’s passage, effectively threatening the rights of women and girls and their equality before the law.
Finally, the amendment would also open the door to legalizing unregistered marriages, which are often used to circumvent child marriage laws, and to removing penalties for adult men who enter into such marriages and for clerics who perform them. It would also remove key protections for divorced women, such as the right to remain in the marital home or receive financial support from an ex-husband.
The amendments violate international treaties that Iraq has ratified, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Ensuring the safety, dignity and rights of women and girls is not only a state obligation under international human rights law, but also a moral imperative that all Iraqi institutions must uphold, concludes Amnesty International researcher Razaw Salihy on Iraq.
