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9-Year-Old Girls Could Be Married Off As Iraq Plans To Amend Law: Report
The proposed plans would mark a shift from the 1959 legislation, also known as Law 188.
Dominant Shia Muslim parties in the Iraqi Parliament have proposed plans for an amendment to the country’s “personal status law” that could see a Taliban-style rollback of all women’s rights.
If passed, the legal changes will deprive the Iraqi women of rights to divorce, child custody and inheritance as well. These plans are highly controversial.
The law transferred family law authority from religious figures to the state judiciary.
The coalition of Shia Muslim parties claims that the proposed plans move aligns with a strict interpretation of Islamic law and protects young girls from ‘immoral relationships’. They are defended on these grounds.
“It’s the closest it’s ever been.
Stressing the religious side is a way for them to try and regain some of the ideological legitimacy that has been waning over the last few years.”
Opponents of the more have slammed the government and MPs for attempting to diminish women’s rights. Meanwhile, human rights groups stated that the new law effectively puts young girls at risk of sexual and physical violence.
According to the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, despite outlawing child marriages in the 1950s, 28 percent of girls in Iraq marry before the age of 18. A loophole in the law allows religious leaders, rather than courts, to officiate these marriages, enabling underage girls to marry older men with their father’s permission.
