ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Police in Soran district, north of the Kurdistan Region, apprehended a couple on Monday on charges of entering into an invalid marriage, amid a growing controversy that began last week due to the significant age difference between the spouses. Rudaw has learned that the couple - identified as a 65-year-old man with the initials A.S. and a 20-year-old with the initials N. F. - were arrested under Article 376 of the Iraqi Penal Code, which carries a penalty of up to seven years in jail for knowingly entering a marriage deemed invalid on religious or legal grounds. A source from Soran police told Rudaw that “an arrest warrant was issued for the couple today, and they were arrested in the afternoon.” The source added that “after their arrest, they were transferred to the police department for combating violence against women and families.” The case gained widespread attention on social media last week when reports of the May-December marriage surfaced. Speaking to Rudaw last week, the woman explained that she had separated from her first husband and willingly entered into the marriage with her current husband. However, her first husband disputed this, claiming that he never divorced her and that she had remarried while still his wife. The young wife’s father also told Rudaw that his daughter had been “divorced four months ago, but her former husband is now demanding five million Iraqi dinars [approximately $3,400] from the family.” Iraqi law sets the legal marriage age at 18 and prohibits child marriage, though it permits judges to allow girls as young as 15 to marry in “urgent cases.” It also bans forced marriages and expands women’s rights to access divorce. However, in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, there are instances of women being forced into marriage for financial reasons, to settle family or tribal feuds, or to pay off debts.
