Iraq

28% of girls in Iraq marry before age 18 and 7% marry before age 15.

Child marriage is most prevalent in the governorates of Missan (where 43.5% of women aged 20-24 were married before the age of 18), Babil (30.6%) Basra (33.5%), Karbalah (36.8%) Muthana (23.2%), Thiqar (34.8%), and Najaf (37.2%)

While available data is limited, forced and child marriage is reportedly a growing problem for internally displaced Iraqi girls and Syrian girls living in refugee communities in Iraq, and it has also been used by armed groups as “a weapon of war”.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

In Iraq, child marriage is exacerbated by:

● Level of education: 46.2% of women aged 20-24 who were married before the age of 18 have pre-primary or no education, compared to 8.5% who have upper secondary or higher education. During the conflict, children missed school for years, which put girls at an increased risk of being married.

● Poverty: 35.8% of women in Iraq’s poorest households were married as children, compared to 14.2% from the richest households. Heightened poverty following the war in Iraq saw an increase in girls being married in order to reduce their perceived burden on families, or being lured into marriages as a way of escaping financial challenges.

● Religion: Sharia law, which dominates the realm of family law in Iraq, provides limited protection for girls and women. Imams sometimes conduct child marriages without formal registration, leaving child brides without any legal rights or protection.

● Family honour: Some families believe that girls “need to be taken care of”, and marry them in order to preserve their honour. Some older generations reportedly believe that keeping an unmarried girl is comparable to “keeping a barrel of gunpowder at home”, suggesting that child marriage is used to prevent sexual relations outside marriage, perceived as “illicit”.

● COVID-19: The economic impacts of the pandemic, along with the extended school closures, have led to an increase in negative coping strategies, including school drop-out, child marriage and child labour. In surveys of refugee and asylum seekers in Iraq, UNHCR found “there was a sharp increase in the percentage of [households] reporting turning to child marriage (42%), child labour (17%), and/or selling household items (17%) to generate funds.”

Humanitarian settings like in Iraq exacerbate poverty, insecurity, and lack of access to services such as education, factors which all drive child marriage. While gender inequality is a root cause of child marriage in both stable and crisis contexts, often in times of crisis, families see child marriage as a way to cope with greater economic hardship and to protect girls from increased violence.

Iraq is experiencing its most stable period since the invasion of the United States in 2003. Iraq has faced decades of armed conflict, violent protests, corruption and political instability. Despite armed violence declining in recent years in some parts of Iraq, armed groups continue to carry out military operations and unpredictable attacks that continue to cause displacement.

In Iraq’s post-conflict context, approximately 3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, including 1.2 million internally displaced persons and more than 280,000 refugees as of April 2023, and 5 million returnees.

During the conflict in Iraq, armed groups systematically abducted girls and women and used rape, slavery and forced marriage as “weapons of war”.

● Displacement: The arrival of refugees from Syria and the displacement of Iraqis has exacerbated child marriage and the trafficking of women and girls for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Limited access to basic healthcare, education and employment and precarious conditions in refugee camps reportedly drives some parents to marry their daughters in order to protect them.

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Iraq has committed to ending child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The government submitted a Voluntary National Review at the 2021 High Level Political Forum. In this review, the government acknowledged that gender-based violence and child marriage are prevalent. According to a study conducted by UNFPA and the Women’s Empowerment Department of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, there were 8 main factors that contributed to an increase in gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included: child marriage, displacement, poverty, harmful practices, lack of safety and security, imbalanced gender relations, political instability and limited financial resources.

The government submitted a Voluntary National Review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum. In this review, the government provided an update on progress towards this target, stating that 27.9% of girls are married at age 18 or younger; in poor families, the percentage increases to 30%, compared to 19% among the rich population.

Iraq acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1986, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage[KS1] . However, Iraq entered a reservation, declaring that it was not bound by Article 16 of CEDAW, on the equal rights of men and women in all matters concerning marriage.

In 2019, the CEDAW Committee expressed concerns about the persistence of child marriage and the high rates of child marriage in the camps for internally displaced people. The Committee recommended that Iraq:

● Adopt a comprehensive strategy to eliminate all harmful practices;

● Repeal the discriminatory legal exceptions to the minimum age of marriage for girls and ensure that the minimum age of marriage is set at 18 years;

● Address the trafficking in women and girls for purposes of forced marriage.

During its 2019 Universal Periodic Review, Iraq agreed to review recommendations to prevent and eradicate harmful practices against women and girls, particularly early and forced marriage, and amend provisions that protect offenders if they marry their victims.

During its 2014 Universal Periodic Review, Iraq agreed to examine recommendations to take steps towards ending forced and temporary marriages that entrap girls in sexual and domestic servitude, and to abolish and amend all laws that encourage and permit child marriages.

[KS1]Iraq specifically inputted a reservation saying they were not bound by Art 16 of CEDAW.

In June 2023, the government introduced its first draft Child Protection Law, in an effort to address and safeguard children’s rights in Iraq.

In November 2017, the Government of Iraq introduced a bill to amend the Personal Status Law authorising religious sects to define the rights of women and girls in accordance with their beliefs. If passed, some religious sects would define the age of marriage as low as nine years old, in accordance with their interpretations of the Quran. However, as of March 2020, this amendment has not been approved. An earlier, more extreme version of the bill, provoked international outcry.

In 2016, an inter-ministerial committee adopted a plan by the High Council of Women Affairs to help change societal attitudes and behaviour towards child marriage in the Kurdistan region. The plan, supported by UNFPA, included a public campaign on “ensuring my future”, which highlighted the direct relationship between empowering young girls and boys and reducing rates of child marriage.

In the Kurdistan region, UN agencies, international and local NGOs and government counterparts have established a Child Marriage Task Force that has produced a guidance note on addressing child marriage cases.

According to the Personal Status Law and Amendments 1987 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However individuals can marry at 15 years with judicial consent.

Article 41 of the Iraqi Permanent Constitution (2005) enables every sect and religious community to follow its own religious teachings and laws regarding marriage, and affects attempts to standardise a legal age in line with international standards.