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Iraq flag by Hussein Samad, 2023, pexels
Amendments have been made to Iraq’s controversial Personal Status Law. However, despite some improvements, these amendments ultimately fail to protect women’s equal rights.
Amendments to Iraq’s Personal Status Law that came into effect on February 17th, 2025, have failed to adequately protect women’s rights, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, according to a press release by Human Rights Watched delivered on March 10th, 2025.
Certainly, steps have been made, in large part due to pressure and advocacy by women’s rights groups, which helped to retain provisions on the minimum age of marriage, child custody, and polygamy. However, the amended law still retains several provisions that put women’s and girls’ rights at risk. However, Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, contended that “though the text includes important revisions, particularly on the minimum age of marriage, these changes merely take the law from terrible to just plain bad”.
The final text of the amendment specifies that the minimum age of marriage cannot contravene the Personal Status Law, which sets the legal age of marriage at 18 or 15 with a judge’s permission and depending on the child’s maturity and physical capacity. This is a marked concern from the previous law, causing concerns that it is capable of sanctioning marriages of girls as young as nine years old. However, the possibility of enabling marriage at 15 with a judge’s permission contravenes international legal standards, which stipulate the minimum age for marriage to be 18. This is especially concerning given that UNICEF recorded that 28 percent of girls in Iraq are married before the age of 18.
A polemic provision also remains regarding polygamy, which states in Article 3 of the Personal Status Law that polygamy is only allowed with the consent of a judge, who must ensure that the husband can support more than one wife and that there is a “legitimate interest”.
Moreover, progress has been made regarding the child custody provisions, consideration of which may not include “anything that does not align with the best interests of the children”, and in the event of a dispute between a husband and wife over which legal regime is to be applied, a judge shall determine the best interests of both parties unlike in the previous version of the law, where the husband’s decision took precedence.
Nevertheless, doubts and concerns remain, especially given that the amendment legalises unregistered marriages, whose harm has been extensively documented, especially since the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq noted that 22 percent of unregistered marriages involved girls under the age of 14. It is unclear what impact the legalisation will have in practice.
Overall, although pressure groups were able to force some positive amendments, generally, the law is still considered a setback to the rights of women and girls.
Sources and Further Readings:
Ananya Kohli, (March 10, 2025), ‘HRW: Iraq personal status law amendment fails to protect women’s equal rights’ Jurist <https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/03/hrw-iraq-personal-status-law-amendment-fails-to-protect-womens-equal-rights/>
Human Rights Watch, (March 10, 2025), ‘Iraq: Personal Status Law Amendment Sets Back Women’s Rights’ Human Rights Watch <https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/10/iraq-personal-status-law-amendment-sets-back-womens-rights>
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