Iraq's top court rejects plea against law allowing domestic violence

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's top court on Sunday rejected a plea by a women’s rights group to end the legal justification of a man beating his wife days after at least five women were knifed to death, burnt alive, and shot by their husbands or male relatives across the country.

Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court dismissed an appeal filed by the Iraqi Women's League that deemed Article 41 of the Iraqi Penal Code unconstitutional. The article allows violence as “it gives a husband a legal right to punish his wife within certain limits prescribed by law or custom.”

In a statement published in Tareek al-Shaab newspaper on Monday and seen by Rudaw English, the court stated that the article the organization appealed against “stipulates the right to discipline within the limits established by law, Sharia, or custom.”

The intended punishment in the law “does not mean ‘domestic violence,’ but rather it is reform, rectification and it is restricted,” the court added, noting that the organization’s claim “is not based on constitutional reasons, therefore it has been rejected.”

The Article also allows the disciplining by parents and teachers of children under their authority.

Iraqi Women's League is a women's organization that was founded in 1952 to defend the rights of Iraqi women.

Rudaw English reached out to the Iraqi Women’s League for a comment but they were not immediately available.

From genital mutilation, child marriage, and the so-called honor killings, lawyers and rights organizations struggle to fight for the rights of women in Iraq where the patriarchy is deeply-rooted.

Domestic violence remains a serious problem in the country, despite the prohibition of “all forms of violence and abuse in the family” in the Iraqi constitution as the country has no specific law dealing with violence against women.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed its concern regarding the court’s ruling.

“It is of great concern that Iraqi judges and the Iraqi government seem intent on maintaining abusive provisions of the penal code,” Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW told Rudaw English via WhatsApp on Monday.

The Article “not only allows for domestic violence but potentially can be seen as encouraging it,” Wille added.

The Kurdistan Region, however, has a separate law to combat domestic violence, but it continues to report cases of gender abuse, child marriage and the murder of women on the hands of men. The law reflects on the Iraqi constitution and the Islamic law. 

A husband reportedly set his wife ablaze in Sulaimani on Saturday, the most recent in a series of attacks and murders against women in the Region.

Iraq still reports cases of forced and child marriages as the laws are often not enforced. Families usually arrange marriages through religious marriage contracts separate from the legal system.

Religious marriages are not considered legal until they are registered by a court. Sometimes women are forced to marry for the family’s financial benefit or they are married off to settle a family or tribal feud. Female assault victims are often pressured to marry their rapist to maintain the family’s honor and judges often push for “reconciliation” in cases of domestic violence at court.

In December, a 16-year-old teenager was disfigured by a man who broke into her home and attacked her with acid, after her family rejected his offer or marriage.

Women activists took to the streets of Baghdad to protest child marriage in November.

Iraq reported about 17,000 complaints of domestic violence in the past year, according to AFP.

“It is very concerning that the government still has taken no measures to either amend the penal code in order to get rid of these terrible provisions or to pass a domestic violence law that would actually protect people in their homes from being abused,” Wille noted, referring to the stalled efforts of the Iraqi parliament to pass a draft law against domestic violence.

The Iraqi presidency presented the Anti-Domestic Violence law to parliament in 2019, but it has not been adopted yet, despite pressure from the United Nations. A key provision of the bill is the creation of shelters for victims of domestic violence.