Let’s work together on March 8 to reject the law allowing 9-year-old girls to marry!

8^th March is the International Day of Struggle for workers and women against injustice, oppression, and capitalist discrimination against women. Every victory of the working class and its equality movement against capitalism has resulted in an improvement in women’s political, economic and social rights.

Today we commemorate 8^th March at a time when the world is experiencing a transition of uncertainty, violence, imperialism and militarism alongside the transition to a multipolar world.  Imperialist blockades have kept human civilization in a state of turbulence marked by violence, destruction, high costs, unemployment, poverty, and inequality. 

Most of the victims of this unfortunate circumstance are women and children. Thousands of women and children are buried beneath the debris of demolished communities and homes. Thousands of people have been sexually attacked. Even though the bourgeoisie’s economic instability and successive crises have pushed society into poverty, women workers and employees have been the most affected!

If the struggle of men and women for freedom and equality forced some governments and authorities to include some of women’s rights in legislation, subordination and secondary status have openly destroyed women’s lives and personalities in societies where religious laws and cultural conservatism reign supreme.

Women in Kurdistan and Iraq have been subjected to murder, brutality, sexual assault, insults, forced self-immolation, and hundreds of other problems under the shadow of nationalist, religious, and militia systems and authority, the most recent of which is the enactment of legislation. Jaafaria’s personal status bill violates the most important international laws and conventions, particularly the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which defines a child as a person under the age of eighteen. Additionally, Article 16 of the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) guarantees equality between men and women in marriage, divorce, and child custody.

Iraq ratified the CIDAW in 1986 but has not fully complied due to criticism of religious regulations, and Article 19: Protection of children from all types of abuse and exploitation states that early marriage is a form of sexual exploitation for children. Article 24 specifies that it involves the preservation of children’s physical and mental health, and that early marriage causes significant physical and mental harm to girls. Iraq adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, yet Jaafari’s bill violates the premise. 

Article 16 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provides that everyone has the right to marry with complete consent and without force; yet, the new law enables the girl’s father or guardian against her will. Forced and underage marriage are considered forms of torture since they cause permanent physical and emotional trauma. Iraq joined the Convention Against Torture in 2011, thus any local law that permits such abuses is considered illegal under international law.

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-FIR strongly condemns the Iraqi Parliament’s decision, on March 8, to amend the Personal Status Law 1959 to permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls. This law directly violates women’s rights, child protection, and human rights. This amendment not only promotes the violation of fundamental human rights, but also a direct attack on girls’ bodies and minds, in addition to many other articles of the law that violate women’s rights in marriage, such as divorce protection. This type of law is a dangerous setback because it exposes women and children to violence and exploitation, with long-term effects. 

International solidarity must be demonstrated in opposition to this action. We Demand that the amendments to Iraq’s Personal Status Law be reversed immediately. International organisations, the European Parliament, and women’s and children’s rights groups should be encouraged to apply pressure on Iraq’s government and parliament to reject this law. Get rid of the cruel and awful.

To gain international support against this law, the Federation urges the women’s liberation and equality movement, as well as organisations protecting children’s and women’s rights, to apply pressure on Iraq’s government and parliament to repeal this ugly law!

Happy International Women’s Day!

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-IFIR