Iraq to lower the ‘age of consent’ for girls to nine

[Waitingforfriday75]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/iraq-poised-to-lower-the-age-of-consent-for-girls-to-nine/

Posted here as it gets the most traffic. This is by far the worst news I’ve heard all year. Imagine at the age you were meant to start secondary school instead being forced to marry and have sex with an older man. Completely disgusting!!!

Wow: muslims are going take over the world and oppress all women. You do know, that you are the one who sounds like the child right? Paranoid much? So if Israel manages to genocide all the Palestinians and Lebanese we will be safe?!

Shame on you for being a g-side supporter. How you can see all the men, women and children being killed and still support the oppressor beggars belief. Shame!

look at the history since 1947 and tell me honestly that you trust Israel to do the right thing.

Read my previous posts. Stop believing everything you see in the media and use a bit of intelligence.

I wasn’t going to comment on the Israeli related posts, (although personally I have strong feelings on the matters) as one of the few posters on this topic living in Iraq, I wanted to keep this post focussed on the Iraq issues.

However I would like to say, respectfully, I don’t agree with you that this has anything to do with Israel - I also do not agree with you that people in any of the Middle East countries I’ve lived in would benefit from Israel “winning” - I’ve intentionally put “winning” in quotation marks as what does “winning” mean or look like anymore….The Israeli state is currently responsible for the following - “More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades” (quote from Oxfam press release Sep 2024)

Irregardless or whether this is intentional or not, (as everyone is entitled to their own opinions) it doesn’t show a high regard for the lives of (predominantly) Muslim and Arab women and children. Iraq and other Middle Eastern country have been affected by countless wars over the last generation, and overall I think the one thing we should take away from these experiences is - I do not think supporting ANY country (be that Israel / US / Iraq or even Canada) whose concept of delivering “safety” to a specific group of people (such as women and children in this example) is to blow the country to bits and accidentally or intentionally kill thousands of women and children (current Israeli/ Gaza conflict) or 1 million individuals (US invasion of Iraq) in the process.

I think collectively we can probably all think of much better ways to advance the rights of women and children in the Middle East than by supporting ANY type of armed conflict no matter what that conflict may be.

Shame on you for your anti-semitism. It is war and my interest as a woman is with the west prevailing. The only genocide is the one that Hamas is committed to against the Jews.

Shame on you also for mischaractering and misrepresenting my argument. But perhaps that's the best you can manage.

I had a quick scroll through, am I allowed to ask now please?

I think you need to explain again like I’m a child where I have been anti-Semitic? I know you were probably using this as a silencing tactic but it won’t work. I believe you are islamophobic. That should be as disgusting as being anti-Semitic. If it’s not as disgusting I would reflect on why not?

Kids have their 9th birthday in year 4. That is beyond grim.

@Justiceeternal do you think the rights of women and girls are equal in the west and Islamic countries?

I honestly can’t understand why they would do this. There is nothing ok about it. All it does is mean there are far fewer ‘criminals’ and a poor girl is instantly married if attacked. Sometimes I hate the world.

Francesca P. Albanese
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Perhaps educate yourself then. Yes I think debating with you IS pointless as you are not listening and I’m not going to keep repeating myself.

But according to you it is anti-semitic to protest against genocide. Got it.

Overall I just find your comment quite sad to be honest, not sad in a pathetic way, I suppose sad that you see what’s currently going on in the world as some sort of existential “Islam Vs the West”

One reason is it’s sad that you think people like those within Hamas speak for Islam? Much like when ISIS ripped through most of Syria and Iraq, I’d like to believe that the majority of people understood the difference between a religion followed by just under 2 billion people, and a group of mostly men who capitalised on a dire situation to spread violence and hate.

The same way we don’t think that Right Wing fundamentalist Christian Americans who want to remove women’s autonomy to their body, and outlaw gay rights are speaking for all Christians.

I am a woman also, and equally believe I equal rights for men, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, with protection in place for girls and boys.

I just don’t think bombing our way to equality is the way to go for any state, group or person.

Power , control and a push to see how far they can go. The proposal extends beyond this, including women's rights in a divorce, custody, inheritance etc. Somehow that didn't make the headlines.

It's not a "lower" the age of consent law anyway , it's an amendment (that hasn't passed yet)that allows the different sects to legislate according to their own customs/laws/sharia, rather than universal law from the government. If that were to happen, a lot of horrors would befall women and girls in Iraq, and they would have very few, if any rights.

Do you see the rights of women and girls as equally important in Iraq as to the west?

Well I live in Iraq, so I probably have a much different opinion to you, who (I don’t know of course) but I assume doesn’t live in Iraq.

And yes I do see the rights of women’s and girls as equally important - since your question asked me “Do I see the rights of women and girls as equally important”

If you’re asking me - do men in Iraq see the rights of women and girls as equally important? or do the current government in Iraq see the rights of women and girls as equally important? - then my answer is - many do, also unfortunately a lot of people see restricting women and girls as a form of protection and also a lot of men, both Middle Eastern and western do not value women at all.

There are many female led organisations and activists working for change in Iraq, alongside international organisations - who were instrumental in the protests and public backlash that had this proposed law abandoned.

Thank you for posting your lived experience. It's disgusting people are ignoring you and spouting their thinly veiled hatred of Muslims especially with their "Israel will save the world" bollocks.

Thank you :) - although I’m not Muslim, I know earlier there were some Muslim posters on previous pages so they can perhaps comment from a religious perspective - I can only comment from living in the country and am aware of some elements as Iraq is a majority Muslim country.

What are your thoughts in this and why they are allowing this? What way do they think if will protect women? As a side note, I’d love you to do an AMA about living there! How did you get into mumsnet?

Yes I am asking you overall if you see them as equal

Not your personal views, but generally. Is your answer that you do see them as equal?

That Iraq has the same amount of interest generally in the rights of women and girls as western countries

I'm reading your post that you do think that's the case, but maybe not?

You've said you want children to be protected but do you mean children that are western and non muslim. It doesn't matter about the muslim children beheaded and dying in gaza because they are just Muslims. Don't advocate for children when you clearly don't care that thousands of them have been slaughtered by Israel

I mean I’m assuming the law change was proposed the same way shitty men anywhere try to control and subjugate women by whatever means they have at their disposal- not meant to come across as I hate men in general, just when it comes to things like this.

It wasn’t properly voted on because of public backlash and protests.

I’m not really “into” politics so the below is just how I see it.

There’s a lot of backstory to the way things work in Iraq - which is also crazy complicated - so I guess main areas (and please if anyone here IS a politics expert - come and correct me!!) different political groups also have their own militia (kind of like private armies) which can control parts of the country in terms of access, safety, illicit trade….Iraq as a country also has its own army obviously - they mostly kind of just get on with their own bits and don’t interfere too much with each other…. Until something happens that someone really doesn’t like.

Some of these really powerful militia and government officials/ parties are funded by Iran which is a much more hardline country in terms of policies than Iraq. In the current government there is a majority of Shia conservative/hardline Party members, many who are aligned to the interests of Iran - which no doubt would include less rights for women.

I dare say with this specific proposal it wasn’t about “protecting” women at all (as the suggestions were horrible for women and girls, not just the age to me promised for marriage but also inheritance rights) but controlling women and trying to take women’s choice away so they had to be reliant on men.

I’m not an expert, and I’m not even massively “into” politics - I just wanted to highlight some info on the ground about this specific proposal - and then the conversation kind of drifted a bit….

But as I mentioned a few times, just because a country isn’t where others want it to be vis a vis, rights of women, rights of LGBTQIA+ community, child protection - doesn’t mean we should then jump to military intervention, as I think all people are quite attached to not being blown to pieces for any reason.

What on earth has that to do with women's rights in Iraq?
Qatar has expelled Hamas as they're so sick of them.

Quite a few pages ago I mentioned Rights legally held VS practice is different.

I think firstly - I do not see the west as having a particular interest in the rights of women.

I see exactly the same problems in Iraq and the west (I also live in Southern Europe and UK in case anyone wonders if I have experience in the west) which are men trying to push women down, subjugate them, use them - this is obviously a much bigger problem in Iraq, because men have more power in family, community and government than in western countries currently.

A much bigger problem in Iraq is due to the tribal and family structures, for example, I can legally request a divorce by law in Iraq as a woman - there is no law against this (like I could in Europe) however unlike Europe, here you have maybe your tribe, your community and family who will disown if you get divorced, so many women stay in abusive marriages and suffer GBV as they feel trapped due to social stigma.

So no women’s rights are not where they need to be in Iraq - I don’t think I or any other posters ever stated that they are.

I also don’t think a lot of men in power give a shit about women, either in the west or in Iraq, I think they are pressured to do so by women in government, human rights groups, women led groups etc.

I think a positive way to support countries like Iraq to invest in social and behaviour change to improve the reality of rights of women and children, would be political pressure, and supporting and uplifting women’s rights orgs.