Baghdad, Iraq
AP
—
Iraq’s parliament passed three divisive laws on Tuesday, including amendments to the country’s personal status law, which opponents say will in effect legalize child marriage.
The amendments give Islamic courts greater authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists say this undermines the Iraqi Personal Status Law of 1959, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.
Supporters of these changes, which were primarily supported by conservative Shiite lawmakers, defend these changes as a means of aligning the law with Islamic principles and reducing Western influence on Iraqi culture.
Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age for marriage in most cases. The changes approved Tuesday will allow clerics to rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law, which some interpret as allowing girls to be married in their early teens — or as young as nine according to the Jaafari school of Islamic law followed by many of Iraq’s Shiite religious authorities.
Parliament also passed a general amnesty law which is seen to benefit Sunni detainees, and is also seen as giving a pass to people involved in corruption and embezzlement. The chamber also approved the Land Return Law, which aims to address Kurdish territorial claims.
Human rights activist and member of the Iraqi Women’s League, Intisar Al-Mayali, said that approving the amendments to the Civil Status Law “will leave disastrous effects on the rights of women and girls, through the marriage of girls at an early age, which violates their right to life as children, and will disrupt the mechanisms for protecting divorce, custody, and inheritance for women.” .
The session ended in chaos and accusations of procedural violations.
A parliamentary official said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, that “half of the representatives present at the session did not vote, which broke the quorum.” He said some members protested loudly and others took to the parliament podium.
After the session, a number of lawmakers complained about the voting process, according to which the three controversial laws, each of which had the support of different blocs, were voted on together.
Raed Al-Maliki, an independent MP, said: “With regard to the Civil Status Law, we strongly support it and there is no problem with it.” “But it’s combined with other laws that will be voted on together…and that could lead to a legal appeal in federal court.”
In a statement, Parliament Speaker Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani praised the approval of the laws, describing them as “an important step in the process of promoting justice and organizing the daily lives of citizens.”
A security official said that at least three officers, including the commander of National Security in the Tarmiyah area, north of Baghdad, were killed and four others were injured, today, Tuesday, in an explosion in an ammunition warehouse.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to inform the media, said the explosion occurred while a joint force of the Iraqi army and the National Security Service was conducting an operation following intelligence reports of ISIS activity and an attack. An ammunition cache in the area.