The Republic of Iraq is gearing up to push minor girls into marriages. Furthermore, the girls will be deprived of any financial assistance or alimony and even any right to their kids in case of a divorce. The motive behind the move, as per the administration, which is aligned with the Sharia Law, is to discourage girls from having any romantic relationships as they are deemed inappropriate.
Iraq is on the verge of lowering the legal ‘consent’ age from 18 to 9, which would allow men to marry young children. An amendment that would repeal the nation’s “personal status law” is about to be approved by the Iraqi parliament, which is controlled by a coalition of conservative Shia Muslim parties. When it was first presented in 1959, the law, also known as Law 188, was hailed as one of the most innovative in the Middle East. It established a comprehensive set of regulations that control the affairs of Iraqi families, irrespective of their religious affiliation.
The second amendment to the law was passed on 16th September. The amendment will eliminate women’s rights to inheritance, divorce, and child custody in addition to lowering the legal marriage age. Additionally, the law would give residents the option of deciding family matters through the civil judiciary or religious authority. The proposed amendment is intended to shield girls from “immoral relationships,” according to the government.
Women’s rights in Iraq have been under attack for over ten years by the Shia religious organisations that control the political system. Shia parties in Iraq had previously attempted to reform the personal status law, but their efforts were unsuccessful in 2014 and 2017, primarily because of opposition from Iraqi women. However, according to Dr Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, the coalition currently holds a sizable parliamentary majority and is poised to pass the legislation.
He stated, “It’s the closest it’s ever been. It has more momentum than it’s ever had, primarily because of the Shia parties. It’s not all Shia parties, it’s just the specific ones that are empowered and are really pushing it.” Dr Mansour added that Shia Islamist outfits were using the proposed amendment as part of a larger political strategy to “consolidate their power” and reclaim legitimacy. “It is not yet clear exactly when the amendment will go before parliament for a vote, but it could come at any moment,” he further conveyed.
Iraq does not have a male guardianship system like neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which requires women to get consent from a husband, father, or male guardian before making important life decisions like getting married. All that is about to change, though, and the nation might soon resemble Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The Coordination Framework, a political alliance of groups with ties to Iran, has controlled the Iraqi political system since 2021. They have enacted many laws that are based on the Sharia Law including criminalising homosexuals and transgenders and adopting religious holidays.
According to the coalition administration, the proposed amendment seeks to “protect” young girls and is consistent with the interpretation of the Sharia Law. The administration is anticipated to pass the legislation in spite of the objections from Iraqi women’s organizations because it has a legislative majority.
The fresh amendment: Disaster for women and children
The proposed modification to the Personal Status Law (PSL), the civil code that determines the legal foundation for social and family life in Iraq, gave Iraqi individuals two choices when they were married, they may choose between rules based on sectarian preferences or the modern, primarily secular law. However, the men alone will have the last say in this matter. This idea has sparked significant worries about the future of women’s and children’s rights in addition to deepening the religious divide.
The PSL, which was adopted in 1959, brought every element of society together under a single code while taking into account the human rights of women and children as well as Islamic precepts that apply to all faiths. Articles covering child custody, inheritance and alimony centred on the welfare of children and women and the marriage age was placed at eighteen. Moreover, to maintain uniformity in the jurisdiction over family matters, all marriages had to be contracted in front of a judge in the state court system otherwise the union was considered illegal.
The recently proposed modification undermines the strong checks and balances and centralized accountability that were made feasible earlier. This law would make family law arbitrary and dismiss human rights as well as social consequences by giving clerics most, if not all, of the decision-making authority over family problems.
The legalization of child marriage is the most significant outcome of the proposed amendment. The current PSL specifies that 18 is the legal marriage age. Girls as young as nine might be able to legally marry if this amendment is approved. In Iraq, child marriage is already a significant social problem. 28% of girls are married before they reach the current legal age, based on the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). This is due to a loophole in the personal status law that permits religious leaders, rather than the courts, to perform thousands of marriages annually, even ones involving girls as young as 15 who have their father’s consent.
These unregistered weddings are common in Iraq’s ultra-conservative Shia populations that are also economically disadvantaged. However, the girls and any children they might bear are denied numerous privileges because the marriage is not recognized by the law. For instance, if a woman does not have a marriage certificate, hospitals could refuse to accept her for childbirth. According to Human Rights Watch, the amendment would legalize these religious weddings, increasing the risk of sexual and physical abuse for underage girls and preventing them from accessing jobs and education.
The implications for young Iraqi girls, who already face difficulties, might be devastating if the proposed change is approved. A maelstrom of early pregnancies and associated health hazards, along with even fewer opportunities for education and financial security, would follow. According to data, 46.2% of Iraqi women who marry before turning 18 have only completed pre-primary education or have no formal education. Likewise, early marriages have negatively impacted children due to unwanted sexual interactions, domestic rape and domestic violence coupled with pregnancy and delivery hazards, according to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report on child marriages in the Kurdistan area of Iraq.
The problem of child marriage, along with other clauses that limit mandatory child custody with the mother from ten years to as little as two years, impart preference to men in inheritance and child custody disputes, and waive child support obligations. It also institutionalizes gender discrimination and increases the vulnerability of women and young girls to exploitation.
Opposition and concerns regarding the law
A number of Iraqi lawyers, social activists and Sunni religious figures are opposing the proposed modifications. Women’s rights groups have taken to social media to express their outrage over the action, accusing the government of trying to “legalise child rape.” The 188 Alliance, a group that opposes gender discrimination and the oppression of Iraqi women and seeks to stop Iraq from becoming increasingly gender-segregated like Afghanistan, is among the primary opposition voices and organised agitations across the country in August. According to activists and experts, the amendment would essentially nullify the nation’s most significant women’s rights.
Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch expressed, “The amendment would not just undermine these rights. It would erase them. It’s explicitly written in the draft that when there’s a dispute between the couple, the sect of the husband takes priority. This is going to remove a lot of protections for women. It will undermine the principle of equality before the law.” She was also worried that the amendment would grant Iraqi women from specific sects more economic autonomy and privileges while keeping others in violent marriages or impoverished. “(These women) will have to stay in harmful situations because they fear losing custody of their children,” she voiced.
“This is a catastrophe for women. My husband and my family oppose child marriage. But imagine if my daughter gets married and my daughter’s husband wants to marry off my granddaughter as a child. The new law would allow him to do so. I would not be allowed to object. This law legalises child rape,” said Raya Faiq. She serves as the coordinator for a coalition of organizations opposed to the proposed legislation. There are a few Iraqi MPs in the group as well.
Supporters of the new law confronted opponents during coalition-organized protests in Baghdad, the country’s capital, and many other cities, accusing them of “moral decadence” and “following Western agendas.” Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of the Iraq-based Aman Women’s Alliance mentioned, “Following the mass youth protests which took place in Iraq in 2019, these political players saw that the role of women had begun to strengthen in society. They felt that feminist, gender and women’s organisations, plus civil society and activist movements, posed a threat to their power and status (and) began to restrict and suppress them.”
Despite facing fierce resistance, a group of 25 female members of parliament have been working to prevent the proposed law from going to a second vote. The latest modifications will be formally discussed and then put to a vote by the Iraqi parliament. Alia Nassif, an Iraqi MP disclosed, “Unfortunately, male MPs who support this law speak in a masculine way, asking what’s wrong with marrying a minor? Their thinking is narrow-minded. They don’t take into consideration that they are the legislators who determine people’s fate but rather follow their masculine thinking to authorise all this.”
Protesters expressed their concern that if the legal amendments were implemented, their children would have to deal with a future that is much more cruel than their own. “I have one daughter and I don’t want her to be forced like me to marry as a child,” stated Azhar Jassim. She had to drop out of school to get married at the age of sixteen. The director of Model Iraqi Woman and international human rights legal counsel Athraa Al-Hassan expressed her “apprehension” that the Guardianship of the Jurist, a Shia system that prioritizes religious authority over the state, could replace Iraq’s current political structure. A similar arrangement is used by the governments of Iran and Afghanistan, where a Guardian Jurist is the nation’s top authority.
After failing to impose the death penalty, the ruling coalition made same-sex partnerships punishable by up to 15 years in prison in April. Additionally, it decided last year that media outlets should use “sexual deviance” instead of “homosexuality” across all platforms and even the word “gender” was prohibited. “What they aspire to in parliament is not in the interest of society, but their personal interest,” declared Al-Hassan. She is one of the most prominent figures in the nation’s feminist movement.
“We are defending the rights of women and girls (and) protecting Iraqi society from disintegration and the establishment of sectarianism among the social fabric,” she added. Al-Hassan called the amendment “extremely dangerous” and warned it was a “violation of the constitution” to meddle in the business of the Iraqi judiciary. “Iraq is a civilised civil state that cannot be otherwise. The first female minister in the Arab countries was Iraqi and the first female judge was Iraqi. We aspire to progress, not regress,” she asserted.
Iraq has long been plagued by sectarian strife. According to Dr Mansour, changing Law 188 would exacerbate already existing differences. “It would bring everything back to the sect. But many Iraqis don’t want to be defined politically by their sect. They want to be defined by their government and their state.”
The new amendment attempts to further regress the conservative Iraqi society and deepen the cracks of sectarianism and discrimination. It has caused shockwaves, particularly with reference to the status of women and children after the passage of the law.
