Germana Carillo Presented in Parliament by a coalition of conservative Shiite parties, an amendment, adopted at first reading on August 4, which aims to lower the legal age of consent to marriage for women from 18 to 9 years. Iraq is therefore likely to change its marriage laws, which would lower the legal age of consent. Currently, it is Afghanistan that has the lowest age for marriage: here girls and boys can get married at 15 years old
@Amnesty International
Iraq, already notorious for early marriages, is now considering a law that could drastically bring the legal marriage age for girls down from 18 to a mere 9 years old. The pending legislation has aroused outrage among the public at large, since it provides for men to be married to very young girls.
The proposal, introduced by conservative Shiite groups dominating Iraq’s parliament, seeks to amend the country’s “Personal Status Law” in a move critics describe as a Taliban-style rollback of women’s rights.
The personal status law: a cornerstone of women’s rights
Iraq’s Personal Status Law was enacted in 1959 following the fall of the monarchy and represented a revolutionary step in protecting women’s rights. Considered one of the most progressive set of laws in the Middle East, the agreement was a product of negotiation among women’s groups and anti-imperialist factions within Iraq. It transferred family jurisdiction from religious authorities to the state’s judiciary and regulated marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance.
The law established a minimum marriage age of 18 and prohibited polygamy. However, this amendment would likely void such protections by permitting “Muslim adults” to select family laws based on Sharia, either Sunni or Shiite. Opponents note that this could eradicate the minimum marriage age for girls considered Muslim and also bring about severe punishment regarding inheritance and child custody in cases of divorce.
A spate of reversals for women’s rights in Iraq
The proposed amendment is the latest in a spate of moves by Iraqi political leaders to roll back women’s rights and gender equality. These have so far criminalized homosexuality, banned the term “gender” and blocked a law against domestic violence.
28% of Iraqi women married before 18
Despite the 1950s ban on underage marriage, a UNICEF survey revealed that 28% of Iraqi girls were married before the age of 18. Alarmingly, a 2021 UNAMI report found that 22% of unregistered marriages involved girls under 14.
Unregistered marriages exacerbate these problems in that women have little access to government services, including registration of their children’s birth and claiming their due rights. Without a civil marriage certificate, women cannot give birth at hospitals, which creates tremendous obstacles toward receiving health care.
Religious councils would jeopardize women’s equality
The current Personal Status Law is applied to all Iraqis, regardless of their religion. The amendment under consideration would allow Sunni and Shiite religious councils to prepare their own “Sharia rulings on personal status” within six months of the law passing, thereby undermining the principle of equality and the rights enshrined for women and girls under the law.
Legalizing unregistered marriages
The amendment would, finally, open a door to the legalization of unregistered marriages, an arrangement utilized to get away with the laws against early marriage. In this respect, it would decriminalize adult males who enter unregistered marriages and clerics who officiate such a marriage. It would also deprive divorced women of crucial protections, including their rights to stay at the marital house or get support in money from former husbands.
International Agreements Breach
These amendments also violate international conventions that Iraq has signed and ratified, including CEDAW and CRC. “The protection of women and girls from violence, their dignity, and the realization of their rights is not only an obligation of the state under international human rights law but also a moral duty upon all Iraqi institutions,” says Razaw Salihy, Iraq researcher at Amnesty International.
