BAGHDAD, Iraq - The increase in child marriage across Iraq influenced the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to organize a two-day national conference to address the issue and to help raise awareness of the harmful practice.
The National Conference to Address Early Marriage was held in Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday and it was attended by donors, stakeholders, and victims of child marriage.
Zainab Qasim, who was forced into marriage by her family at a young age said she felt very bad at the time and that she was in pain.
Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have witnessed a spike in early marriage over the past 10 years, according to UNFPA.
The Iraqi law sets the legal age for marriage at 18 but allows a judge to permit girls as young as 15 to be married in “urgent” cases. However, the laws are often not enforced as families often arrange religious marriages which are separate from the legal system. They are not considered legal until registered in a court of law.
“In the Kurdistan Region, the cases of early marriage are slightly less than in overall Iraq. However, it’s still increased for the past 10 years, so there is still a trend of increasing,” UNFPa representative Rita Columbia told Rudaw’s Halkawt Aziz on Saturday.
Reports mentioned at the conference stated that the rate of married girls younger than 18 in 2021 in Iraq was 25.5 percent while in the Kurdistan Region it was 22.6 percent.
UNFPA advisor Mahdi al-Alaq blamed the reason for early marriages on girls skipping their high school and university studies.
The UNFPA is a United Nations agency working towards putting an end to gender-based violence, and advocating for women’s reproductive health
In 2016, the agency ranked Iraq among the countries with the highest rate of underage marriage, stating that five percent of Iraqi girls were married before the age of 15, and 22 percent before they turn to the age of 18.
