Iraq’s parliament has reportedly passed several laws including the one that will effectively legalise child marriage for girls as young as nine.
According to Mail Online, the amendments to Iraq’s personal status law will give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce, and inheritance.
Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases, but the changes passed on Tuesday, January 21, would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law.
Some of these interpretations allow the marriage of girls in their early teens or as young as nine under the Ja’afari school of Islamic law followed by many Shiite religious authorities in Iraq.
Proponents of the changes, which were advocated by primarily conservative Shiite lawmakers, defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture.
But Intisar al-Mayali, a human rights activist and a member of the Iraqi Women’s League, said passage of the civil status law amendments ‘will leave disastrous effects on the rights of women and girls through the marriage of girls at an early age’.
‘This violates their right to life as children, and will disrupt the protection mechanisms for divorce, custody, and inheritance for women,’ the activist declared.
The parliamentary session which saw the passage of the amendments ended in chaos and accusations of procedural violations.
Half of the lawmakers present in the session did not vote, which broke the legal quorum,’ a parliamentary official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment publicly.
After the session, a number of legislators reportedly complained about the voting process, under which all three controversial laws, each of which was supported by different blocs were voted on together.
