WORLD CITIZENS CALL ON THE AUTHORITIES OF IRAQ TO WITHDRAW THEIR DRAFT LAW ALLOWING THE MARRIAGE OF 9-YEAR-OLD GIRLS

The AWC is alarmed to hear that a draft law under consideration in Iraq may make it legal for a man to marry a girl as young as nine.

We hear many individuals and civil society groups in the country have rightly spoken out about the said draft law.

We firmly believe the Iraqi authorities should by no means make it the law of the land.

For seventy years, Iraqi law has considered the “full age” for marriage, in the very words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be eighteen. That is consistent with the Convention on the Rights of Child under whose Article 1 “a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years”.

Lowering the marriageable age for girls to nine would send a disastrous signal for girls in Iraq and, in a broader manner, throughout the entire Arab and Muslim world and, ultimately, throughout the entire world, beyond the borders of states, cultures, languages, religions, ethnic groups or of any other nature. It would mean the end of the very notion of child abuse.

Since the draft law would make it possible for a man to marry a young girl but not, conversely, for a woman to marry a young boy – and, even then, it would only be equally condemnable – the draft law also sends a discriminatory message toward women, signifying that a female life is of lesser value.

The AWC condemns in the strongest terms any legislative attempt, whether in Iraq or anywhere else for this purpose, to turn a child into a person’s property, let alone their sexual object of pleasure.

We hereby call on the Iraqi Government and Parliament to immediately withdraw the draft bill and ensure that Iraqi law remains steadily consistent with UN human rights standards.