After years of decline, child marriage is on the rise again in war-ravaged Iraq, and this draft law stands to legalize the practice, and then some.

“Passage of the Jaafari law would be a disastrous and discriminatory step backward for Iraq’s women and girls,” says deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. The law proposes to reduce the legal age of marriage for girls from the current 15, to 9 years old. It makes the father the only family member that can accept or deny a marriage request, leaving the mother powerless to stop the union. The law would also legalize marital rape by stating that a husband is entitled to marital sex with or without the wife's consent. It also prevents women from leaving the house without permission from their husbands and would automatically grant custody of any child over 2yrs to the father in case of a divorce (most often obtained by the man).

This law leaves women withhout the protection of the law in their civic and family lives, and offers them up for abuse in a patriarchal system that dis-serves them from childhood through adulthood.