Organizations working for the rights of women and girls are worried about this bill related to the marriage of girls. They fear that this will eliminate women's rights and strengthen the patriarchal society. This will reduce cases of inheritance, divorce and child custody.
Draft of law presented in Iraqi Parliament
There is a preparation to introduce a new law in Iraq, which sets the minimum age for marriage of girls at nine years. The draft of this law has been presented in the Iraqi Parliament. Iraq's conservative Shia parties are pushing for an amendment to the personal law in parliament that would allow children as young as nine to marry. Women's rights organizations are concerned about this bill. Women and human rights organizations have called it promoting patriarchy.
Law 188 of the 1959 Personal Status Law
Amendments to Law 188 of the 1959 Personal Status Law are being considered. This law was passed by Abdul Karim Qasim government. Qasim's government introduced many progressive reforms, including women's rights. According to women's rights activist Suhaliya Al Assam, this law, made in 1959 with the advice of experts, lawyers, religious heads and experts, is considered one of the best laws in West Asia for the rights of women.This law sets the legal age of marriage at 18 for both men and women. It also prohibits men from being allowed to have a second wife.
Preparation to change the law of 1959
Changes to the law, enacted in 1959 during the Qasim government, are being sought by a coalition of conservative Shia Islamist parties, the largest faction in Iraq's parliament. The draft that has been tabled in Parliament states that couples will have to choose between the Sunni or Shia sect in all matters of personal status. The change would allow Shia and Sunni endowment offices to decide on marriage, rather than courts.The draft of the bill states that the Shia code will be based on the Ja'fari legal system. Jafari Law is named after the sixth Shia Imam Jafar al-Sadiq. It contains rules regarding marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption. It allows marriage of nine-year-old girls and fifteen-year-old boys.
Human activists are against this
This draft bill has been presented in the Iraqi Parliament by independent MP Raed al-Maliki. The changes proposed in the draft have increased the uneasiness of human rights activists. Tamara Amir, CEO of the Iraqi Women's Rights Forum, told Middle East Eye that these proposed changes to the personal status law will have a deeply negative impact on the rights and well-being of women and children in Iraq.He questioned whether the politician would allow his nine-year old daughter to get married. He said the Iraqi community unequivocally rejects these proposals, calling it an insult to both Iraqi men and women. We have been fighting against this for years.
Yanar Mohammed, chair of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told that the coalition introducing the bill was an attempt to divert attention from the government's rampant corruption and its own shortcomings. Their most effective tool for this distraction is to terrorise Iraqi women and civil society with a law that takes away all the rights Iraqi women have enjoyed in modern times. It imposes archaic Islamic Sharia on women.