“I lost my life from the first day of my marriage. I was 13, and the man I had to marry was 20 years older than me. » Shaima's story is one that can only be told in the privacy of a home. Curled up on the sofa in a modest but stylishly decorated living room, she sips her Turkish coffee, making sure to leave enough grounds at the bottom of the cup to read her future, looking for an omen of better days. She chain cigarettes, takes a long drag which she spits out, as if to signify that she is ready, in the same way, to exhale her personal story.
Born in 1977 in a village near Basra, in southern Iraq, Shaima is the eldest of nine children raised in the violence of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. A childhood “no money, just enough to buy bread every day, nothing moreshe remembers. My father sold me to the brother of one of his friends. I didn't want to marry him, he was too old, violent, always very angry. But I couldn’t refuse.” From this forced union five children were born. “I had my first at 14. I was so young and tired that one day I fell asleep while breastfeeding one of my babies. It was a little girl. She died of suffocation. » Deafening silence. His confession is heart wrenching.
“I was only a child,” she sighs, as if trying to reassure the little girl still bruised within her, the young bereaved mother and the woman of almost 50 who still struggles to forgive herself. “I am very angry with my parents. They humiliated me, it's their faultshe continues, with tears in her eyes. But when I think of my mother, I realize that she too was a victim. She set herself on fire at the age of 42 because my father was bad to her. »
Twenty-four years have passed. Shaima divorced, found her freedom. However, she still cries for not having understood sooner the extent of their common condition: born girls, becoming women under the crushing weight of a premature marriage. If the proposed amendment to the personal status law, carried by a coalition of Shiite parties in Parliament, is adopted, it would allow Iraqis to appeal to religious authorities to resolve family matters, including child marriage. In the apartment she shares with her daughter and her sons born from a second union, her sister and her nieces, the question is already decided for Shaima: “If this project passes, it will destroy women’s lives even more. To gain my freedom, I had to do things I can't talk about. I can never be a normal person. »
The danger of parallel justice
In Iraq, 28% of girls marry before the age of 18, according to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund. A scourge that civil society is trying to stop across the country, through demonstrations and awareness campaigns. This was without taking into account the sudden eagerness of the coalition of Shiite parties to reform the law. Since 1959, family matters – marriage, divorce or inheritance – have been governed by the state.
The amendment to Law 188 would open up the possibility for Iraqis to turn to religious courts. “There will no longer be one family affairs code but three: the civil code, the Shiite code and the Sunni code. This will destroy Iraqi judicial authority, the rights of women and children, and create sectarianism. It will be a disaster”protests Athraa Al Hassani, a lawyer from Baghdad and director of the Model Iraqi Women organization.
Sitting in a chic café in the capital, she takes two books out of her bag: the Iraqi Constitution of 2005 and the current code of personal status. “They absolutely want to vote on the amendment before even having written the text. This is a first in the history of the country”she adds. This process raises all the more concerns as there is talk of authorizing the marriage of girls from the age of 9, according to a certain interpretation of Shiite Islam, and 15 years for Sunnis.
Protests brought by women and men of all ages
As soon as the proposal was submitted, a group of activists, lawyers and political figures created the Coalition 188 movement, of which Athraa is a part, at the origin of numerous demonstrations organized sporadically across the country. Not without difficulty. “We gather in Baghdad, Basra, and Najaf, where the women of the Coalition face a lot of pressure and harassment. Some had to withdraw for safety reasons. »
This did not, however, discourage the handful of diehards gathered one Friday morning in Baghdad's famous second-hand booksellers' street. Women, but also men of all ages: the oldest alongside the new generation. They tirelessly hammer home the same slogan: “Child marriage is illegitimate. » At the head of the procession, an early activist leads the way. If he prefers to keep his first name quiet, he proudly displays his 76 years. “I am here because I have my homeland in my heart. Can a 9 year old girl get married or get pregnant? It's an insult to women. »
In the front row, Naqiya is so small that her head barely exceeds the sign held up by the other demonstrators. His piercing blue-green eyes, his wrinkled hands but his firm grip suggest decades of indignation. “I remember the promulgation of the law of 1959. A law which protects the Iraqi family; other Arab countries were even inspired by it. Amending it is a crime! » The gathering did not last an hour. The demonstrators gathered at the foot of the statue of Al Mutanabbi, one of the greatest poets of the classical Arabic language. The group disperses in peace, leaving the scene to the solitude of the bronze poet facing the Tiger, arm outstretched towards the sky, he seems to proclaim one of his verses: “Life is like a river; it flows, but those who have courage swim against the tide. »
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Child marriages around the world
While the prevalence of child marriage around the world is falling, the practice remains widespread. One in five girls and one in twenty-five boys are married before reaching adulthood, according to UNICEF.
Child marriages mainly occur between the ages of 16 and 17, but 5% of girls are married before the age of 15 across the planet.
650 million girls and women alive today were married before the age of 18. In Iraq, 28% of girls are married before the age of 18, according to Unicef. And 22% of unregistered marriages involve girls under 14, reports the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq.
One in three married children in the world lives in India.
