A new law has come into force in Iraq that legalizes child marriage according to the Shiite Ja’fari school of law. This has met with resistance, including among Sunni clerics.
By Arvid Vormann, 30.09.2025
“Girls not Brides” – Children in an Iraqi village, Picture: Wadi e. V.
A new law has come into force in Iraq that legalizes child marriage according to the Shiite Ja’fari school of law. This has met with resistance, including among Sunni clerics.
Women in Iraq may soon have even fewer rights than they already do. In the spring, the Iraqi parliament approved a decisive amendment to Civil Status Law No. 188 of 1959, which officially came into force in September.
According to this amendment, husbands in Iraq can now choose whether their marriage should be governed by civil or Shiite law. This will contribute to further fragmentation of the law and have a significant impact on the legal framework for marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance. The plan is meeting with considerable resistance, especially from Sunni Islamic scholars.
Furthermore, it was passed under extremely questionable circumstances. Shiite parties had already submitted a similar proposal in 2014, but it failed at the time due to opposition from the majority. This time, they tried a kind of “horse trading”: Sunni MPs were promised an amnesty law in return, while Kurdish MPs were promised changes to controversial land ownership issues in Kirkuk. The law was thus passed as part of a package without extensive discussion or reading in parliament.
It was already the case that Christians, Yazidis, and other non-Muslims were subject to their own specific laws in family law, based on their respective religious traditions. However, the 1959 law was “progressive” in that it treated all Muslims equally and guaranteed some basic human rights for women and children.
In the future, this would no longer be guaranteed, as family matters could then be settled largely at the discretion of clerics instead of in a regular court according to codified law. Each school of law would then be free to lay down its own rules in accordance with its interpretation of Sharia law, even if these violated the constitution. This would lead to many erratic and arbitrary decisions that would jeopardize the rights of women and children in particular.
Criticism from many sides
The new code of the Shiite school of law has been criticized from many sides. Although the minimum age of marriage for girls was raised from nine to fifteen—still problematic—following massive protests, including international ones, other provisions also severely disadvantage women and children and undoubtedly violate human rights. For example, women can only file for divorce if they have been abandoned, are not financially provided for, or can prove that they are being abused on a continuous basis. If the religious court does not recognize any of these reasons, the woman is trapped in the marriage. The man, on the other hand, can file for divorce at any time without any complications.
In the event of separation, children up to the age of seven are awarded to the mother, while older children go to the father. As soon as a child reaches the age of eight, custody automatically passes to the father. The welfare of the child is not taken into account.
If the mother remarries, she loses custody of all her children. The same applies in the frequent case where the mother flees to her parents for fear of her violent husband. In addition to her children, she then also loses all financial entitlements. The Sharia court will require her to either return to her husband or file for divorce. Furthermore, women cannot inherit from their husbands. Only in the unlikely event that the woman is the sole surviving family member does she receive a quarter of the inheritance; the rest goes to the Shiite Foundation Office.
(Details of the new law have been compiled here by the two organizations ADWI and Wadi, which are active in Iraq).
All these regulations could be invoked by the husband, even if he does not belong to the Shiite community. Even in an existing marriage, the man would have the option of demanding the application of Shiite law in court at any time. The wife’s objection would be null and void.
Resistance from Sunni clerics
The reform is highly controversial among Sunni clerics and legal scholars. In 2019, Al Azhar University in Cairo issued a fatwa that caused a stir at the time, stipulating that the age of marriage should be 18 and that a marriage could only be legally valid with the consent of both partners. They therefore see no need for change in the current legal situation, which also sets the regular age of marriage at 18 (15 upon request), and firmly reject the rigid disenfranchisement of women and children. Many are also unwilling to accept the new legal pluralism. They do not accept the argument that there is ultimately no compulsion to submit to Shia law and that Sunnis are free to develop their own family law code.
The imam of a large mosque in Erbil, Dr. Youssef Abdullah, emphasizes that the 1959 law already takes into account both Shiite and Sunni legal traditions without neglecting human rights. This law has always worked well, he says, so there is no desire for a “separate” Sunni code. He explains that women have no rights under Shiite law, while men are allowed to practice “muta” (temporary marriage, de facto a form of prostitution) at any time. The father has unlimited power over his daughters through his legal guardianship and can easily marry them off early and against their will. All of this contradicts Sunni legal opinion.
The great inequality between the sexes is already causing considerable social suffering in Iraq. Domestic violence, polygamy, and early marriages are widespread, the divorce rate is high, and unhappy marriages marked by physical and psychological violence are the norm. In addition to violence, girls also experience systematic discrimination of various kinds. When children in Iraq are asked about their rights, they reply: “We have no rights.” This legal reform would exacerbate existing problems and multiply the injustices against women and children. The final decision now lies with the Supreme Court of Iraq.
Wadi and our partners are planning various events in November to address this issue. We are also in close contact with human rights and women’s rights organizations in other parts of Iraq.
More background about the law:
Wadi 
