We’ve just learnt that any minute now, the Iraqi Council of Representatives will vote to legalise Forced Child Marriage1.
The specifics of the legislation (part of the Jaafari Personal Status Law) are terrifying:
- There will no longer be a minimum age to legally marry (it’s currently 18) but the law provides policies for divorcing a 9-year-old girl;
- A girl’s father would legally be able to accept a marriage proposal on her behalf; and
- The girl would be legally prohibited from resisting her husband’s advances and leaving the home without his permission.
The law was sent to the Council of Representatives yesterday, and the vote could happen any time now. To prevent Iraq’s girls from becoming vulnerable to forced child marriage it is crucial that we act now.
Currently, Iraq has one of the most progressive policies on women’s rights in the Middle East -- setting the legal marriage age at 18 and prohibiting forced marriage2.
Brave Iraqi women have been fighting against removing the minimum age for marriage, for their sake and for the sake of their daughters. Last month on International Women’s Day, countless women attended demonstrations in Baghdad protesting the Jaafari Personal Status Law. They called it the “Day of Mourning”3.
Iraqi Sunni and Shia religious leaders have criticised the Jaafari Personal Status law as discriminatory and a violation of religious texts4, and Safia al-Suhail, a female Member of Parliament, has called it a “disaster” showing that Iraq is “going backwards”5. You know that this stuff is serious when members of the religion that the Jaafari Personal Status laws supposedly come from are condemning them.
We may not have much time to stop Iraq from legalising Forced Child Marriage and a lifetime of domestic and sexual slavery for girls and women. If you want to help stop this backsliding into the dark ages then here's the link:
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