What is Iraq's proposed law that may allow girls to marry at 9?

Is Iraq going to legalise child marriage?

Shia Islamist parties are pushing an amendment to Iraq’s personal law in Parliament that would allow children as young as nine to be married off.

The proposed amendment, which had its first reading on Sunday, has caused outrage from women and child’s rights activists.

But what do we know about it? And where else is child marriage allowed?

Let’s take a closer look:

What do we know?

First, let’s take a brief look at the law that Islamists are proposing changing.

According to Middle East Eye, amendments to Law 188 of the Personal Status Law of 1959 are being considered.

The law was passed by the Abdul-Karim Qasim government.

Qasim was a leftist nationalist who introduced a slew of progressive reforms including women’s rights.

As per The National News, the law is thought to be the most comprehensive in West Asia when it comes to protecting the rights of women.

Passed by specialists, lawyers, all religious heads, and experts in 1959, it is considered “one of the best laws in the Middle East,”  according to women’s rights activist Suhalia Al Assam.

It sets 18 as the legal age for marriage for both men and women. It also sets curbs on men being allowed to take a second wife. The law lets a Muslim man marry a non-Muslim woman without any pre-conditions.

However, it allows men and women to be married at age 15 with the permission of a judge and their legal guardian, as per Rudaw.net.

A woman is also allowed to defy her husband if he does not provide a home for her or take care of her if she is sick, as per The National News.

As per Middle East Eye, the changes to the law are being pushed by the Coordination Framework – an alliance of conservative Shia Islamist parties which comprise the biggest bloc in Iraq’s Parliament.

The draft bill

The draft bill states that a couple are required to choose between the Sunni or Shia sect “all matters of personal status.”

“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 bill states.

The change would let “the offices of the Shiite and Sunni endowments” to sanctify marriages instead of the courts.

The draft bill requires Shia and Sunni endowments to submit a “code of legal rulings” to Iraq’s Parliament six months after ratifying the amendments.

It states that the Shia code would be grounded on “Jaafari jurisprudence.”

Jafaari law, named after the sixth Shiite Imam Ja’afar Al Sadiq, governs marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption.

It allows girls as young as nine and boys as young as fifteen to be married.

The draft bill was introduced by Independent MP Raed al-Maliki, as per Rudaw.net.

Raed previously proposed amendments to the anti-prostitution law which criminalised homosexuality and sex-reassignment surgeries.

Previous versions of the draft bill have proposed barring Muslim men from marrying non-Muslim women, legalising marital rape, and stopping women from leaving the home without permission from their husbands.

The proposed changes have raised the hackles of activists.

“These proposed changes to the Personal Status law would have a profoundly negative impact on the rights and wellbeing of women and children in Iraq,” Tamara Amir, CEO of the Iraqi Women’s Rights Platform told Middle East Eye.

“Would politicians let their nine-year-old daughter get married? I’m sure not but they would allow the oppressed Iraqi population to do so,” Al Assam told The National.

“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,” she added.

Yanar Mohammed, president of Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told Middle East Eye the coalition was attempting to draw attention away from their own shortcomings including “massive corruption.”

“Their most efficient tool for this distraction is to terrorise Iraqi women and civil society with a legislation that strips away all the rights that Iraqi women gained in modern times, and force archaic Islamic sharia on them that regards women as bodies for pleasure and breeding, and not as human being[s] with human rights,” she said.

Iraqi women lawmakers putting their own coalition together in opposition to the amendment.

“The group wants to make it clear to everyone that the rejection is not based on emotions or external motives, but on legal, religious, professional, and social considerations and people who are concerned about protecting the order of the Iraqi family,” Iraqi MP Noor Nafea al-Julihawi was quoted as saying by the news site Kurdistan24.

The Coordination Framework insists the law does not “contradict foundations of democracy,” as per Rudaw.net.

“The intended amendment to the Personal Status Law is in harmony with the constitution, which stipulates that Iraqis are free to make their choices in a manner that does not contradict the constants of Sharia and the foundations of democracy,” the Shiite bloc said in a statement

Where else is child marriage allowed?

Around 117 nations including the United States allow children to marry, according to a 2016 US Pew Research Center analysis.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, child marriage remains a major problem.

It says that globally, one in five girls is either married or in an informal union before the age of 18.

The problem is particularly dire in the least developed countries where 36 per cent of girls are married before age 18, and 10 per cent of girls are married before age 15.

According to Statista, while the issue is widespread it African countries are particularly afflicted.

Niger has the highest rate of child marriage among girls. Over 75 per cent of girls under 18 are married, with around 30 percent of them being younger than 15 years.

Niger is trailed by the Central African Republic, Chad, and Mali. In all these countries, the legal age to get married is lower for girls than boys.

In Niger and Chad the legal age is 15 years for girls and 18 for boys. In Guinea, the legal age is 17 for girls and 18 for boys.

The UNFPA in 2019 in a joint study with the Johns Hopkins University, Victoria University, the University of Washington and Avenir Health said child marriage in 68 countries – which account for 90 per cent of these marriages – could be ended for around $35 billion or $600 per child bride by 2030.

With inputs from agencies