No to the Amending the Personal Status Law in Iraq
Since late July, the Islamic parties and their
representatives in the Iraqi parliament have begun a new attempt to change the articles of the Personal Status Law (PSL)188 issued in 1959.
The law amendment was presented without any description explaining the exact changes to come. Instead, the members of the parliament proposed this amendment and promised that Shiite and Sunni scholars would complete the legal paragraphs in six months! In other words, they want the parliament to vote on a carte blanche.
It is not possible to turn back the clock to 65 years. The six decades of achievements and progress in the PSL came through the struggle of women and men seeking equity for women before the law.
Society has moved beyond the matter of marrying a girl at the age of nine years or less. So, we must ask, how will they amend such age limitations? No sane person can accept the ability of an infant to consent to marriage, regardless of Sharia or jurist support of such amendments.
Likewise, it is not possible to link alimony to the man’s sexual enjoyment with his wife. It is unacceptable to prevent women from inheriting plots of land because of their status as women. Men cannot be exempt from their responsibilities towards women providing care and domestic labor simply because of illness or because of a lack of sexual satisfaction.
We cannot return to the law of savagery, to the destruction of family relations, or to a society based on the unequal relationship between men and women wherein women are deemed slaves. Regardless of the reasons that prompted parliamentarians to take the initiative to amend this law, popular discontent is again rising against them. There is no going back.
We, the women and men of Iraq, reject amending the Personal Status Law that, in turn, replaces legal order with Shiite or Sunni Sharia laws.
Family life in Iraq is not a ball in the court of the Islamic parties, whether Shiite or Sunni.
The Personal Status Law is not an electoral card to raise during election times to win the votes of reactionary and backward people seeking to turn back the clock.
We stand firmly against the proposed amendments in Article 2 of the PSL.
Aman Women’s Alliance
July 23, 2024
