In Iraq the new law on consent is an amendment to the “personal status law”, in which girls can legally marry from the age of nine and boys from 15 years old, with many activists saying increased child marriage will “legalise child rape”. The law further reduces a woman’s right to divorce, inheritance and child custody, all of which are crucial for safety, agency and autonomy. 

The law was passed through by the Shia religious groups who dominate Iraqi politics.. 

The new law significantly reduces the protection of girls and women alike, and exposes them to increased chances of exploitation and abuse – abuse that already existed before the new consent law. As previous to this, marriage was illegal under the age of 18 in Iraq, however despite this 28% of Iraqi girls married before they turned 18.  

This may be partly to do with something called ‘zawaj al-mutaa’, or ‘pleasure marriages’. Shia clerics have been found to groom young girls into short term marriages, known as ‘pleasure marriages’, in which the groom is allowed to have religiously approved sex with the young girl under the approval of the Shia cleric, something not allowed under Islamic law. However these marriages can last as little as a couple of hours, and the girls are left scared of family disownment as virginity is enshrined as purity and therefore needed for legalised marriages in the eyes of the family. As a result the girls are often forced into the cycle of pleasure marriage after pleasure marriage, each time receiving a small fee from the cleric’s cut to get by as many leave home due to feelings of shame. The younger the girl, the higher the fee as the girls are seen as ‘in demand’ and ‘sought after’ by the men paying if they are more likely to be virgins. The BBC found that girls as young as nine were involved in this inhumane act.  

The new law could make situations like this even more common as its now technically legal to marry at this age and therefore engage in sexual acts.

Global laws on consent

These lack of basic child protection laws are not just bound to Iraq. The UN has found that if global child marriage continues at the rate it is, the number of girls who marry as children will hit almost 1 billion by 2030.

Girls who marry as children are more susceptible to domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, more likely to leave education early and die due to childbirth complications. As well as this, child marriage has unprecedented effects on national economies, as it can exacerbate poverty cycles across generations.

Despite this, at least 117 countries around the world currently allow child marriage in their legal framework, according to the Pew Research Center.

Many countries rule that girls can marry once they reach puberty such as the Philippines, which for girls is between the ages of 8 and 13.

In Bangladesh 51% of girls marry before reaching 18 and 16% marry before age 15, however only 4% of boys marry before 18. In fact according to Girls not brides 1 in 5 girls globally are married before 18.

On top of this in one fifth of countries (38), the minimum age differs between men and women, and almost always the girl is younger.

These law marks the degradation of human rights for all women and girls and highlights the cruciality of a legal framework tailored to protecting the rights of women and girls, some as young as nine.