Iraq

From C.I.'s "Fundamentalists threaten the rights of Iraqi women, polio threatens Gaza"

Starting with Iraq and specifically women and girls in Iraq.  So we're all on the same page, let's drop back to July 29th:

Baghdad's Tahrir Square was the scene of a protest today.  SHAFAQ NEWS reports:

Hundreds of Iraqi women took to the streets of Baghdad on Sunday to protest against proposed amendments to the country’s personal status law, expressing particular outrage over provisions that would legalize child marriage.

Demonstrators, including members of women’s rights organizations, gathered in Tahrir Square, carrying signs that read "No to child marriage" and "The era of child brides is over." The protesters denounced the proposed amendments to Law 88 of 1959, arguing that they would roll back women’s rights.

Here are some photos of the protest. 

AP's Hadi Mizban has a photo of the protest here.  Not really sure why AL-MONITOR's Shelly Kittleson is insisting few turned out.   Reaction on Twitter to the proposal?

Anna Gordon (TIME) explains:

Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status law prohibits marriage for individuals under the age of 18. Exceptions can be made for women as young as 15 if they have permission from both a judge and the parents, according to Marsin Alshamary, a scholar of Middle Eastern politics and an assistant professor at Boston College. 

Iraq’s 1959 law was heavily influenced by the Iraqi Women’s League and is one of the most progressive laws in the region, according to Nadje Al-Ali, a professor of anthropology and Middle East studies at Brown University.  

“The reason it is perceived to be one of the most progressive laws of the time and even later on, is because it made it much more difficult for a man to marry a second, third, or fourth wife. He actually had to have the permission of the first wife,” Al-Ali tells TIME. “It also made divorce possible for women, it pushed the marriage age to 18, and very crucially, it was a unified set of laws that applied to both Shia and Sunni Muslims.”

That law and other customs which protected the rights of women went out the window after the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. US 'help' -- real or pretend -- rarely helps those in need.  It didn't help Iraqi women when the US government put cowardly fundamentalists in charge of Iraq (cowardly because they'd all fled Iraq and only returned after the US invaded).  Instead of backing freedom and rights, the US focused on advancing crooks and cretins who they hoped would sign away Iraq's rights to oil.    THE WEEK notes,  "After youth protests erupted across Iraq in 2019, politicians 'saw that the role of women had begun to strengthen in society', Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of the Aman Women's Alliance, told The Guardian. 'They felt that feminist, gender and women’s organisations, plus civil society and activist movements, posed a threat to their power and status'."  Cathrin Schaer (FRANCE 24) adds, "The other big problem is how the choice could divide Iraqi society. While the current law applies to all Iraqis equally, separate legal systems could inflame societal and sectarian tensions and degrade the status of Iraq's judiciary."  ANHA notes a statement from Iraqi women opposed to proposal who are calling "on all institutions and organizations advocating for women's and children's rights in Iraq to raise their voices against these legal amendments. It stressed that 'a 9-year-old girl’s place is not in marriage and childbirth, but in playing in parks and attending school.' The women urged for the cancellation of this decision before it is approved and called on Iraqi society to oppose these amendments that threaten women's rights and dignity."  At Brookings, Marsin Alshamary observes, "Iraqi women have more rights than many of their regional counterparts, but they must constantly battle to preserve them. In response to the proposed bill, activists, politicians, and lawyers formed Coalition 188 (named after the original PSL) and demonstrated throughout Iraq. Female legislators and policymakers including Nour Nafea, who emerged from the 2019 protest movement -- and veteran politician Ala Talabani -- have worked tirelessly to protest the law."  And Christina Lamb (SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON) provides this context,  "It’s not the first time Iraqi lawmakers have tried this -- previous attempts were blocked. But the country's political system is dominated by conservative Shia Muslim parties who form the largest coalition in parliament and have been pushing to erode women's and LGBT rights. In April they made same-sex relationships punishable with up to 15 years' imprisonment. Initially they were trying to impose the death penalty. The law also criminalised transgender people and what it called 'intentional practice of effeminacy'."  

At FORBES today,  Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab explains:

The proposed legal change is clearly in violation of international law standards and Iraq’s international law obligations.

Iraq is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). However, at the time of accession, Iraq made several reservations that ultimately undermined the treaty and its effectiveness. As its reservation, Iraq indicated that “approval of and accession to this Convention shall not mean that the Republic of Iraq is bound by the provisions of article 2, paragraphs (f) and (g), nor of article 16 of the Convention. The reservation to this last-mentioned article shall be without prejudice to the provisions of the Islamic Shariah according women’s rights equivalent to the rights of their spouses so as to ensure a just balance between them.” Article 2 of CEDAW states that “States Parties condemn discrimination against women in all its forms, agree to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women and, to this end, undertake: (...) (f) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women (g) To repeal all national penal provisions which constitute discrimination against women.”

Article 16 of CEDAW states that “1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women (...) 2. The betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory.”

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued the following:

Iraq’s parliament is moving forward an amendment to the country’s Personal Status Law that would allow Iraqi religious authorities, rather than state law, to govern marriage and inheritance matters at the expense of fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Iraqi parliament, which completed its first reading of the bill on August 4, 2023, will have two more readings of the bill and a debate before deciding whether to vote it into law.

If passed, the amendment would have disastrous effects on women’s and girls’ rights guaranteed under international law by allowing marriage for girls as young as 9, undermining the principle of equality under Iraqi law, and removing protections for women regarding divorce and inheritance. Child marriage puts girls at increased risk of sexual and physical violence, adverse physical and mental health consequences, and being denied access to education and employment.

“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of this bill would be a devastating step backward for Iraqi women and girls and the rights they have fought hard to enshrine in law,” said Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Formally legalizing child marriage would rob countless girls of their futures and well-being. Girls belong in school and on the playground, not in a wedding dress.”

The draft amendment would legalize, rather than try to reverse, Iraq’s significant and growing child marriage problem, Human Rights Watch said. 

Iraqi rights groups and activists have taken to the streets to protest the amendment, and a group of more than 15 women parliament members from diverse parties have come together to oppose its passage. Parliament proposed similar amendments to the Personal Status Law in 2014 and again in 2017, both of which failed to pass.

Under the draft amendment, couples concluding a marriage contract could choose whether the provisions of the Personal Status Law or the provisions of specific Islamic schools of jurisprudence would apply. If couples are from different sects, the school followed by the husband’s sect would apply. 

This arrangement would effectively establish separate legal regimes with different rights accorded to different sects. It would further enshrine sectarianism in Iraq, undermining the right to legal equality for all Iraqis found in article 14 of the constitution and international human rights law.

For instance, the Jaafari school of law, which many Shia Muslims in Iraq follow, allows for girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to be married. The Personal Status Law sets the legal age for marriage at 18, or 15 with a judge’s permission and depending on the child’s “maturity and physical capacity,” which already contravenes international legal standards and best practices.

The draft amendment would also authenticate unregistered marriages, which are conducted by religious leaders but not registered with personal status courts and are illegal under the current Personal Status Law. The amendment would also remove criminal punishments for men entering into these marriages and allow religious leaders, rather than the courts, to finalize marriages.

Unregistered marriages are already a loophole enabling child marriage in Iraq, where child marriage rates have been rising over the last 20 years, a March 2024 report by Human Rights Watch found. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 28 percent of girls in Iraq are married before age 18. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, 22 percent of unregistered marriages involved girls under age 14.

Unregistered marriages also have extremely harmful effects on women and girls’ ability to obtain government services, register their children’s birth, and claim their rights, Human Rights Watch said. Without a civil marriage certificate, women and girls are unable to give birth in hospitals, itself an unjust obstruction to health care, and are forced to give birth at home with limited access to emergency obstetric services. This increases the risk of medical complications that threaten the life of both the mother and her baby. Children and young women are especially vulnerable to some pregnancy complications. 

The amendment would also remove and undermine protections for divorced women. Under the existing Personal Status Law, if a husband requests a divorce, the wife has the right to remain in their marital home for three years at the husband’s expense and to receive two years of spousal maintenance and the current value of her dowry. If a wife requests a divorce, a judge can award her some of these benefits depending on the circumstances.

If religious law were applied, women would lose many of these protections. For example, under the Jaafari school of law, a woman who gets divorced has no right to the marital home, maintenance, or her dowry, and children would continue living with her for only two years, regardless of their age, contingent on her not remarrying. 

Women would also lose some inheritance rights. Even under existing law, daughters inherit a lower proportion of a parent’s wealth than sons. But under some religious laws, daughters would inherit even less, and if a family has no son to inherit the agricultural land, it would revert to the state.

Finally, the amendment stipulates that the Scholar Council of the Shia Endowment Office and the Fatwa Council of the Sunni Endowment Office will develop a “code of Sharia [Islamic law] rulings on personal status matters” and submit it to the house of representatives within six months from the date of entry into force of the law. 

This would mean lawmakers and the general public would not have a chance to review or vote on the code before it becomes law, removing democratic oversight and granting disproportionate power to religious authorities in setting the law, Human Rights Watch said. 

The proposed amendment was introduced by Raad al-Maliki, an independent member of parliament who also introduced the amendment to Iraq’s Law on Combatting Prostitution that criminalized same-sex relations, gender-affirming medical interventions, and “promoting homosexuality,” which passed in April 2024.The law violates fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq.

The proposed amendment would violate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Iraq ratified in 1986, by depriving women and girls of their rights on the basis of their gender. The amendment also violates the Convention on Rights of the Child, which Iraq ratified in 1994, by legalizing child marriage, putting girls at risk of forced and early marriage, leaving them susceptible to sexual abuse, and not requiring decisions about children in divorce cases to be made in the best interests of the child.

The draft amendment appears to violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by depriving certain people of their rights on the basis of their religion.

“Iraqi parliamentarians should reject efforts to strip women and girls of their legal protections and refuse to undo decades of hard-won rights,” Sanbar said. “Failure to do so means current and future generations of Iraqi women will remain strangled by an oppressive patriarchal legal system.”