Shaking and tearful, child brides are big business in Iraq

Archived version

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In January, Iraq passed an amendment to its personal status law, which allows citizens to choose sect-specific religious courts to oversee their marriage affairs. This came after years of lobbying from Shia political parties to opt out of Iraq’s civil law, which has legally protected against underage marriage since the 1950s.

The state has now introduced Ja’fari law, an 8th-century religious jurisprudence specifically for Shias, who are the religious majority in southern Iraq.

A judge can permit child marriage based on perceived “maturity and physical capacity”, and while Iraqi legislation sets the minimum age for marriage to 15 years old, the widely contested Ja’fari teachings allow girls to be married from the age of nine.

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Human rights activists in Iraq believe the amendment has opened up a black market where “parents can exchange daughters for money or status” without repercussions and have accused the state of “legalising child rape”.

In Baghdad, videographers, make-up artists and dress sellers are reporting a boom in the capital’s wedding industry, with dozens telling The Sunday Times that they had seen a recent boost to business due to a rise in child bride clients.

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But a group of Iraq’s most prominent female lawyers, journalists and activists, known as Coalition 188, has spent the past year attempting to combat and reverse the law, as well as other loopholes created by the amendment, including some women losing rights to alimony and custody.

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