Young girls in Iraq who are years away from becoming teenagers could be forced to become wives if a new Shiite-backed law is passed. The new law would lower a girl’s consent from 18 to 9 years.

This includes allowing parents to arrange marriages for their young daughters.

Iraq does not have a male guardianship system that requires a woman to have the consent of a husband, father or other male guardian to make crucial life decisions – such as marriage. The law would also allow religious authorities to perform marriages.

According to the Guardian, the proposed law, which is going through parliament for the second time, has been opposed by women in parliament and activist groups.

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An Iraqi girl lights a candle outside the Imam al-Mahdi Shrine during a ceremony on the 15th of the Islamic month of Shaaban to mark his birth, two weeks before the holy month of Ramadan, in the central city of Karbala in Iraq on February 25 2024 . (MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is a catastrophe for women,” said Raya Faiq, the coordinator of a coalition of groups opposing the law change, which also includes some Iraqi parliamentarians.

“My husband and my family are against child marriage. But imagine that my daughter is getting married and my daughter’s husband wants to marry off my granddaughter as a child. The new law would allow him to do that. I couldn’t object to that. law legalizes rape of children.”

The new law would bring back a Taliban style of rolling back women’s rights.

Young Iraqi girls who have reached the age where they can wear a hijab are dressed for the first time in the head covering worn by many Muslim women at a ceremony hosted on February 21, 2024 at the Basra International Stadium in the southern city of Basra, Iraq. (HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP via Getty Images)

Iraqi citizens have protested in the streets of the country’s capital, Baghdad, and in other cities across the country. The protests were accompanied by clashes against local law enforcement.

Although marriage under the age of 18 has been a national law since the 1950s, a UNICEF survey found that 28% of girls in Iraq married before turning 18.

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Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of the Iraq-based Aman Women’s Alliance, said Iraq’s male-dominated parliament feels threatened by a movement of youth organizations and women.

“Following the mass youth protests which took place in Iraq in 2019, these political players saw that the role of women in society was beginning to strengthen,” said a report by the Guardian. “They felt that feminist, gender and women’s organizations, plus civil society and activist movements, posed a threat to their power and status… (and) began to limit and suppress them.”

Young Iraqi girls who have reached the age where they can wear a hijab are dressed for the first time in the head covering worn by many Muslim women at a ceremony hosted on February 21, 2024 at the Basra International Stadium in the southern city of Basra, Iraq. (HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP via Getty Images)

There have been 25 female members of the Iraqi government who have tried to stop a second vote on the proposed law, but they say strong opposition from their male colleagues in parliament has made this almost impossible.

“Unfortunately, male MPs who support this law are speaking in a masculine way and asking what is wrong with marrying a minor. Their thinking is narrow. They do not take into account that they are the legislators who determine the fate of people… but rather follow their male thinking to approve all this,” said Alia Nassif, an Iraqi lawmaker.

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Protesters fear that their children will face an even tougher future than their own if the changes in the law are passed.

“I have one daughter, I don’t want her to be forced to get married as a child like me,” says Azhar Jassim, who had to leave school at 16 to get married.