Last updated on August 29th, 2024 at 05:35 pm
Baghdad – A bill floated in the Iraqi parliament has raised eyebrows as it demands that the marriageable age of girls in the country be reduced to 9 yrs. An amendment being put to Iraq’s Personal Status Law, proposed by the country’s Justice Ministry, says a minimum marriage age would be reduced from 18 years to just 9.
The proposed legislation would let all citizens decide whether family matters fall under the control of religious authorities, the civil judiciary, and hence fears this development could seriously curtail rights in matters of inheritance, divorce, and child custody.
If passed, the bill will allow girls as young as 9 and boys aged 15 to get married, thereby raising fears of more child marriages and their exploitation. A move like this has been described by critics as retrogressive to restore a position to be eroded from the gains made in women’s rights and gender equality in Iraq after decades of struggle.
Human rights organizations, groups of women, and civil society activists have strongly opposed the bill, cautioning against its punishing effect on the education, health, and general life of young girls. They say child marriages translate into increased dropout rates, early pregnancies, and riskier chances of domestic violence.
“It’s estimated that 28 percent of Iraqi girls are already married by the time they’re 18,” UNICEF said in a statement on the health implications of lowering the legal age of marriage even further. “This law would be taking a step backward, not forward,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah Sanbar.
She was not alone in contesting her unease, as Amal Kabashi, the spokeswoman for the Iraq Women’s Network, said this actually provided vast space for suppression of women in family issues by men in a very conservative society.
It was pulled from parliament in late July after an outcry by a few MPs, but suddenly resurfaced in an August 4 session buoyed by new backing from powerful Shia blocs dominant in the chamber.
However, such changes would definitely represent a clear break from the 1959 law that had divested religious authorities of their competence in family law and gave it exclusively to the state judiciary. This new draft restores the possibility of the application of religious laws, especially from Shia and Sunni Islam, without any reference to other religious and sectarian groups in Iraq’s diverse population.
It is, proponents say, in line with Islamic law and targeted at saving young girls from “immoral relationships.” Opponents say that this is a spurious argument and meant merely to evade the reality of the harshness of child marriage.
Handing over marriage to religious authorities would “undermine the principle of equality under Iraqi law,” argued HRW’s Sanbar.
Whether this latest bid to change the law will succeed, where others have been defeated, is not yet clear.