By James Reynolds
A conservative coalition in Iraq has pushed proposals to lower the legal age of marriage for girls to just nine-years-old, sparking fierce backlash from activists and rights groups.
Protesters demonstrated in Baghdad this week to express their outrage at changes that would allow aspects of personal status matters to be legislated by religious sects, rather than the courts.
With many Iraqi marriages conducted informally and left unregistered, the revisions would allow figures from Sunni and Shia religious sects to finalise unions between people in law.
But critics fear the Shia code would be based on ‘Jaafari jurisprudence’, allowing girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to marry. Under current Iraqi law, both can marry from 18.
‘The Iraqi community categorically rejects these proposals, it is a degrading step for both Iraqi men and women alike. This is what we have been fighting against for years,’ women’s rights activist Suhalia Al Assam told The National this week.
The amendments to Law No. 188, the Personal Status Law of 1959 have been pushed by a coalition of conservative Shia Islamist parties, which form the largest bloc in parliament.
The Coordination Framework attempted to carry out a first reading on July 24, but shelved the plans until last Sunday after meeting political resistance.
Many protesters gathered in Tahrir Square in the capital on Thursday to voice their opposition to the bill, which some said would foment further division in society.
Iraq’s current law states that marriage requires ‘a sound mind and completing eighteen years of age’, with provisions for women fleeing abuse in annulling a contract.
Fifteen-year-olds can submit a marriage request, which judges can choose to approve if they deem the individual well and obtain their legal guardian’s consent.
A judge may permit the marriage of a fifteen-year-old ‘if he finds this absolutely necessary’, the law states, without providing further details.
Under the new laws, marrying Muslim couples would choose either a Sunni or Shia sect, who would be able to represent them in ‘all matters of personal status’ – rather than the civil judiciary.
“When a dispute occurs between the spouses regarding the doctrine according to whose provisions the marriage contract was concluded, the contract is deemed to have been concluded in accordance with the husband’s doctrine unless evidence exists to the contrary,’ the draft says.
And figures from the offices of each ‘endowment’ would be able to finalise marriages, rather than the courts.
This may also see unregistered marriages – more than a fifth of which involve girls under 14 – legitimised by the state.
The current amendments circulating do not directly refer to the issue of child marriages – but previous drafts have, inspiring sharp and ongoing criticism from rights activists.
Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told Middle East Eye the Coordination Framework was using the changes to distract from their own ‘corruption’ and political failures.
She said the proposals served to ‘terrorise Iraqi women and civil society with a legislation that strips away all the rights that Iraqi women gained in modern times’.
Ms Mohammed added that the bill would ‘force archaic Islamic sharia on them that regards women as bodies for pleasure and breeding, and not as human being[s] with human rights.
On July 28, activists wielded signs reading ‘the era of female slaves is over’ and ‘no to the marriage of minors’ as they walked through Tahrir Square in Baghdad, the outlet reports.
The 1959 law was introduced nearly 30 years after the British left by a progressive, left-wing nationalist government under Abdul-Karim Qasim.
Since the invasion of Iraq and fall of Saddam Hussein, right-wing groups have tried to repeal many of these laws and rights.
Proposals have included banning the marriage of Muslim men and non-Muslim women, and legalising marital rape.
Many Iraqis, especially in built-up hubs like Baghdad, have liberal attitudes towards women’s rights.
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