“Iraqi authorities need to recognize that unregistered marriages are opening the door to child marriage on a large scale,” Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a report published Sunday. “Iraqi authorities should take steps to halt the practice and not make women’s and children’s access to critical services like identity documents or health care dependent on their civil status.”
About a third of marriages in Iraq are unregistered, conducted by religious leaders and not legally valid unless they are registered with the Personal Status Court and the couple is issued with a marriage certificate. The majority of these unregistered marriages involve girls under the age of 18 and 22 percent of them are girls under the age of 14, Human Rights Watch stated, citing statistics from the United Nations as well as local and judicial sources.
Under Iraqi law, the legal marriage age is 18 or 15 with the permission of a judge given in special circumstances.
Choosing the unregistered option allows families to get around legal marriage requirements thereby allowing child and forced marriage, which opens the women up to the risk of a lifetime of abuse and violence. They are also a “harmful coping strategy” for families living in poverty where girls are considered an economic burden, said Human Rights Watch.
Without a marriage certificate, women cannot give birth in hospital so they have to have risky home births and will face problems obtaining a birth certificate for their baby, leaving the children of unregistered marriages essentially stateless.
“I was married when I was 14, and soon after I became pregnant, my husband abandoned our family and took my ID and our [religious] marriage contract with him,” one woman told Human Rights Watch. “I was so young, and I had to give birth in my mother’s house with a midwife because I couldn’t go to the hospital. I couldn’t get my daughter her documents, and now she is 16 and still has no documents.”
Without identity documents, her daughter cannot attend school or travel and is facing an uncertain future. “I never feel safe,” she said.
In an unregistered marriage, widows and divorcees are also ineligible for social services and have no legal recourse to claim spousal support or government support.
Human Rights Watch noted that there are no legal provisions to punish those who preside over unregistered marriages, “enabling religious leaders to violate Iraqi law with impunity.”
“Iraq should prosecute religious leaders who officiate marriages in violation of Iraqi law, facilitate the legalization of unregistered marriages, and ensure that all Iraqis are able to enjoy their full range of rights,” said Sanbar.
.png&w=3840&q=75)