Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned that Iraq’s proposed law to legalise child marriage would severely undermine the rights and futures of women and girls, potentially reversing decades of progress.
In a statement issued on Friday, the organisation urged Iraqi parliamentarians to reject the bill, highlighting the devastating consequences it would have on the well-being and legal protections of women and girls in the country.
On 4 August, Iraq’s parliament conducted its first reading of the controversial amendment to the Personal Status Law. HRW has pointed out that the bill would transfer marriage and inheritance matters from state law to religious authorities, creating a framework that could deepen sectarian divides and strip women and girls of essential legal protections.
“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of this bill would be a devastating step backward for Iraqi women and girls,” said Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Legalising child marriage would rob countless girls of their futures. Girls belong in school and on the playground, not in a wedding dress,” she added.
HRW pointed out that the proposed amendment could further entrench Iraq’s growing child marriage problem. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that 28 percent of girls in Iraq are married before the age of 18, with the rates having risen over the past two decades. The organisation also noted that the amendment could exacerbate the challenges women and girls already face, including access to healthcare and legal rights, especially for those in unregistered marriages.
The bill, introduced by Raad al-Maliki, an independent member of parliament, would also allow religious councils to draft a code of Sharia rulings on personal status matters without parliamentary review, which HRW argues would undermine democratic processes and violate international human rights obligations.
HRW calls on Iraqi parliamentarians to reject the bill, warning that its passage would leave current and future generations of Iraqi women trapped in a system that prioritises patriarchal and sectarian laws over their rights.
Meanwhile, protests against the proposed amendments have intensified in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). On Sunday, the Kurdistan Women’s Community and the Kurdistan Free Women’s Movement (RJAK) held a demonstration in Ranya, Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî), condemning the changes. Women’s rights activist Xedîce Musa read a statement denouncing the amendments as an attempt to legitimise violence and promote the exploitation of girls as young as nine under the guise of marriage. The protestors also stressed that these changes would have a direct impact on the KRI, vowing to resist the amendments and urging the Iraqi parliament to halt the legislation immediately in the name of social justice.
