Iraq: Revised 'sectarian' law that raised fears over child marriage passed without vote

A "sectarian" bill that could potentially legitimise child marriage in Iraq has passed into law reportedly without a vote in the parliament.
The parliamentary website said "the proposal to amend the Personal Status Law" and "the second amendment of the general amnesty law" were both passed on Tuesday.
MP Nour Nafe said the parliament passed the personal status law and the general amnesty "without a vote," saying MPs "did not raise their hands".
She wrote on X that some MPs had left the room over the "farce".
The new law will require a Muslim couple to choose either the Sunni or Shia sect when concluding a marriage contract.
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They can then choose that sect to represent them in "all matters of personal status" rather than the civil judiciary.
Previous versions of the bill - typically shelved after public outcry - explicitly called for nine-year-olds to be legally married, something legal experts have warned could be permitted under Jaafari jurisprudence, an interpretation of religious law followed by some Shia.
Many Iraqi marriages are unregistered and conducted by religious figures, making them illegal under the current Personal Status Law.
MP Mohamed Anouz told AFP that a revised version of the bill reinstated clauses of the old law that set the age of marriage at 18 or 15, with the consent of legal guardians and a judge.
Clerics and lawyers will have four months to establish community-specific regulations.
Women's and civil rights campaigners have warned about the impact of the legislation on women and families.
"The proposed amendments take us back centuries - the Iraqi Personal Status Law is one of the best laws in the region," Inas Jabbar, a member of Coalition 188, an activist group formed to oppose the changes, previously told Middle East Eye.
"Therefore, if the amendments are approved this means that we are on the path of leaving the national identity towards sectarian codes, which threatens the social fabric."
Coalition 188, a group of NGOs, politicians and activists opposed to amending the Personal Status Law - also known as Law No 188 - launched protests last year against the changes.
The 1959 law was passed under the government of Abdul-Karim Qasim, a leftist nationalist who introduced several progressive reforms, including increased rights for women.
However, since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, right-wing Iraqi political parties have attempted to roll back these rights.
Previous versions of the bill have included rules preventing Muslim men from marrying non-Muslims, the legalisation of marital rape and banning women from leaving the house without their husband's permission.
The latest version is considerably less explicit, but campaigners fear its passage would allow religious authorities to introduce new rules through their establishment of the Personal Status code.
The draft requires Shia and Sunni endowments to submit a "code of legal rulings" to parliament six months after ratifying the amendments, stipulating the Shia code would be based on Jaafari jurisprudence.
"All marriages have to be registered as Sunni or Shia by this amendment. Thus, sectarian division enters all households," said Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq, another group within Coalition 188.
"Besides, civil courts that file marriage and divorce may become obsolete and will no longer defend women's rights to alimony, custody of children, or other rights."
Mohammed told MEE that the Coordination Framework, a Shia coalition that dominates the government, and its allies were trying to push these "archaic" laws on Iraqis as a distraction from their own failures, including "huge corruption".
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