Iraq is poised to pass a new law that would lower the legal age of consent from 18 to nine, allowing men to marry young girls, according to a new report.
The Shia conservative groups that dominate Iraq’s parliament have proposed an amendment to the country’s “personal status law” that could see a Taliban-style rollback of all women’s rights.
The chance would allow young girls to be married off and put nearly all family decisions in the hands of religious authorities, said Raya Faiq, who is coordinating a challenge against the bill with female Iraqi representatives.
“This is a catastrophe for women,” Faiq told The Guardian. “This law legalizes child rape.”
Critics say it would remove all agency from women.
The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew the brutal, secular regime of Saddam Hussein. The war cost at least $3 trillion — including on efforts to rebuild government institutions and education systems.
However, years of sectarian infighting have led to a government controlled by the Shia Muslim religious majority.
The Shia coalition has tried to amend the personal status law twice in the past, but backlash from Iraqi women defeated both attempts.
The religious groups, however, now hold a large majority in Parliament, creating an uphill battle for Faiq and a block of 25 female representatives who are seeking to stop a second vote that would ratify the bill.
Alia Nassif, an Iraqi rep, told the Guardian that many of her male colleagues fail to see the problem in allowing grown men to marry girls.
“Unfortunately, male MPs who support this law speak in a masculine way, asking, ‘What’s wrong with marrying a minor?’ Their thinking is narrow minded,” she said.
Should the law pass, it would also remove women’s rights to divorce, child custody and inheritance.
The Shia coalition has repeatedly claimed that the point of the law is intended to protect girls from what they consider “immoral relationships.”
Opponents of the law and human rights groups, however, slammed the bill as an attempt to crackdown on women’s rights in the country following protests led by young women against the strict government in recent years.
Human rights groups say the new law effectively puts young girls at risk of sexual and physical violence, and it would also make it easier for them to be pulled out of school and miss their education.
Although Iraq outlawed child marriages in the 1950s, a United Nations 2023 survey found that about 28% of girls in the country had married before their 18th birthday.
