Blog 10- Iraqi Girl-Marriage Bill

Summary:

A new bill has been proposed in Iraq that would allow girls to be married at the age of 9 (or lower, with a parents' consent) and boys to be married by age 15. People believe that this is a ploy to get more of the conservative vote in Iraq, however women's advocate groups are standing up against this bill because of the way that it discriminates between girls and boys. It also states that a man may legally have sex with his wife without her consent (marital rape) and that women don't have to give consent before being married off to a husband. The current law, as stands now, in Iraq is seen as one of the most liberal laws in the region. It states that the age, for both boys and girls, when marriage is acceptable is 18 years old. It also prohibits divorce, restricts polygamy, and guarantees equal inheritance for both men and women. There was another attempt in 2003 to overturn this 1959 law, but was not passed by Paul Bremer in 2003 after human rights groups said that it would cause a revolution.

Analysis:

This article was very well written about a piece of legislation that is intended to marginalize and oppress a certain part of the population: young girls and women. This new bill that they are wanting to be passed will prohibit young girls, as young as 9 years old, to be married without their consent. The problem with this happening in Iraq is that a lot of people are set up in arranged marriages, so these young girls are basically being sold by their fathers to these 15 year old boys for the rest of their lives. The fact that this is happening to girls and not boys is also what makes this very discriminatory and unequal. Because it is women that are being "sold" and married off at such a young age, it brings back the issue of women being a man's "property" rather than his wife or his partner. The article does a good job of describing the way in which activist groups around the region have protested this bill, as it is unfair to young girls who don't have a decision in the matter. I like that the writer included previous attempts to pass other types of legislation that are similar to this one, and also included the fact that that legislation was not passed as their own way of saying that this bill should, also, not be passed.

http://womensenews.org/story/the-world/140416/iraqi-girl-marriage-bill-called-vote-getting-ploy#.U1BxTuZdVa0