In an effort to attract support from Shia Muslims, politicians in Iraq are set to legalize child marriage and marital rape.
The new law, recently approved by the Iraqi cabinet, is expected
to be approved by the Iraqi parliament before the upcoming April 30
parliamentary elections. The law lowers the country’s legal age for
marriage to 9, legalizes marital rape, and bans women from leaving the
home without the permission of their husbands.
The law is a calculated political strategy to please the
nation’s Shia Muslim majority ahead of parliamentary elections. Let that
sink in. Apparently a majority of Iraqis thinks child marriage and
marital rape is a good idea.
The legislation,
referred to as the “Ja’afari Law,” describes girls as reaching puberty
at age nine, thus making them fit for marriage. The legislation also
condones a husband’s right to insist on sexual intercourse with his wife
whenever he wishes, and makes the father sole guardian of his children
at age two.
The legislation was originally proposed by justice minister
Hassan al-Shimari, a member of the Shiite Fadila party, and approved by
the cabinet on February 25.
The proposed legislation is almost identical to legislation
on the books in neighboring Iran, a Shia-dominated Islamic theocracy.
The new law is repugnant and barbaric, dripping with a misogyny that is difficult to imagine.
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