Iraq is proposing a law change which could allow girls as young as nine to get married, rolling back decades of social progress.
The Middle Eastern country’s government is considering changing clause 188 of the Personal Status Law of 1959, First Post has reported.
This would allow citizens to choose either religious authorities or the civil judiciary to decide on family affairs, according to AFP.
A particular worry is the potential for this to roll back the potential minimum age of marriage to be younger than 18.
Protests are now being held against changing the law, which was considered revolutionary for the Middle East at the time.
The law also stops men being able to take a second wife and allows Muslim men to marry a non-Islamic woman.
In July, the Iraqi parliament withdrew the proposed changes when many lawmakers objected to them but they resurfaced in an August 4 session after receiving the support of powerful Shiite blocs that dominate the chamber.
Constitutional expert Zaid al-Ali said the 1959 law "borrowed the most progressive rules of each different sect, causing a huge source of irritation for Islamic authorities".
Several attempts to abrogate the law and revert to traditional Islamic rules have been made since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
Despite the law, a reported 28 per cent of Iraqi females are already married before the age of 18.
Changes could also see boys as young as 15 married, although it is understood that no changes would be made to effectively ban homosexuality.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Sarah Sanbar said: "Passing this law would show a country moving backwards, not forwards.”
Iraq would not be the first country to introduce a law to allow its citizens to get married below the age of 16. Here are some of the laws from around the world.
What is the law in England and Wales?
England and Wales have formally changed the legal age for marriages and civil partnerships to 18.
Before the new law in the UK, you could marry or enter into a civil partnership at the age of 16 if you had parental consent.
Former justice secretary Dominic Raab said perpetrators who go against the legal age will face the “full force of the law”, with someone found guilty of arranging child marriages potentially getting a sentence of up to seven years in prison.
He explained: “This law will better protect vulnerable young people, by cracking down on forced marriage in our society. Those who act to manipulate children into marrying under-age will now rightly face the full force of the law.”
Countries with marriage age limits younger than 16
Several nations around the world allow children and younger teenagers to wed.
In Iran, the minimum age for marriage with parental consent is 13 for girls and 15 for boys. However, for marriage without parental consent, reports say that individuals have to be 15 if they are female and 18 if they are male.
Similarly, in Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Principe, children can marry at the age of 14 with their parents’ consent but have to wait until they are 18 otherwise.
There are a considerably high number of countries that allow children to marry at the age of 15 and 16 as long as their legal guardians sign off on it. However, the majority of nations across the globe have 18 as their minimum barrier for marriage without parental consent.
Iraq is now proposing to join this list with government reforms to marriage ages.
Countries with marriage age limits older than 18
There are also a handful of countries that have set their minimum legal marriage age higher than 18. Below are the countries that require individuals to be 21 years old before they can get legally married.
- Botswana
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Chad
- Eswatini
- Gabon
- Guinea
- Ivory Coast
- Lesotho
- Namibia
- Niger
- Rwanda
- Zambia
Burkina Faso and Libya require the bride and groom to be 20 years old, while Algeria has set the minimum age at 19.
Sudan used to have a unique policy when it came to the legal marriage age. Muslim children were allowed to be legally married as soon as they hit puberty. Non-Muslim children, however, could only marry after they hit 13 if they were a girl, or 15 if they were a boy. The Sudanese government changed the legal age for marriage to 18 in late 2020, outlawing child marriage.
