ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's first lady added her voice to those of female lawmakers and activists who are concerned about proposed amendments to the personal status law, fearing it could undermine women’s and children’s rights as support for the changes grows in parliament
“I am extremely concerned about the proposed amendments to the Iraqi personal status law. Some of these amendments might threaten decades of progress that we realized in securing the rights of women and children in our country,” Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, the spouse of Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, said in a post on X.
A bill to amend the 1959 Personal Status Law is currently on the Iraqi parliament’s agenda. If passed, it would allow Iraqis to choose to follow religious rules to govern matters in their marriages. For Shiites, the proposed bill specifies following the provisions of the Jaafari school of jurisprudence, which permits marriage for girls as young as nine and boys at fifteen.
Parliament was scheduled to vote on the amendments on Wednesday, but the session was postponed.
Women’s rights activists have raised alarms that the proposed changes could lead to a rise in violations of women’s and children’s rights and deepen sectarian divides within the country.
Ahmed highlighted Iraq's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure the survival, development, and well-being of all children without discrimination. “It is not appropriate for us to propose policies that increase societal divisions or jeopardize the rights of our women and children,” she said.
She also urged parliament and the judiciary to ensure any amendments are fully transparent and do not contradict the constitution or national and international legal frameworks.
Rights activists have organized protests across Iraq, including in Erbil, to oppose the proposed amendments.
In September, women lawmakers began collecting signatures to demand the parliament “permanently withdraw the proposed amendment” from its agenda.
Srwa Mohammed, deputy head of the women, family, and childhood committee in the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw on Wednesday that Shiite MPs are determined to pass the amendments and that many female Shiite lawmakers also support them.
Mohammed said that even her committee's head, Dunia Abduljabbar al-Shamari, supports the changes.
The committee held a workshop to gather input from various parties, including parliamentarians, government representatives, the judiciary, civil society organizations, the UN’s children’s organization UNICEF, and legal professionals to refine the proposed amendments.
In a Facebook post by Shamari on Monday, she said the workshop began by “acknowledging the importance of listening to the opinions and suggestions of the parties interested in the proposed law."
The workshop was also attended by independent MP Raed al-Maliki, who introduced the bill and has previously proposed controversial amendments to other laws, including criminalizing homosexuality and sex-reassignment surgeries under the anti-prostitution law.
According to Mohammed, the Sunni bloc in parliament has agreed to support the amendments in exchange for the Shiites backing the general amnesty law.
Amending the 2016 general amnesty law has been a key demand of Sunni MPs, who argue that thousands of Sunnis have been unjustly imprisoned in Shiite-majority Iraq since 2003 due to alleged links to terrorist groups.
Mohammed said that the Sunni bloc does not fundamentally agree with the changes to the personal status law, but will support it to secure the general amnesty law.
She added that efforts are underway to at least change the minimum marriage age for girls from nine to 15, even if the amendments pass.
Hemin Assaf contributed to this report.
