Iraq: Court hearing resumes on marriage of 12-year-old girl

Despite the furore surrounding the case, legal scholars say many other child-marriage situations do not get the same level of attention. “No matter what, a marriage between a 12-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man is simply not acceptable,” Hala, an advocate for women’s and children’s rights in Iraq, told Al Jazeera, asking to be identified only by her first name. The law in Iraq states the legal age for marriage is 18, but that it could be lowered to 15 in “urgent” cases should the person in question’s father consent to marriage. “This case gets particular media attention because the mother of the young girl went on social media and stirred up nationwide discussion,” Mariam Albawab, a Baghdad-based lawyer who works on children’s rights cases in Iraq, told Al Jazeera. “However, there are thousands of cases that have gone under the media radar, and many of those marriages went ahead without much notice or condemnation.” Save the Children, an international NGO, has called for the minimum age of marriage to be at least 18 years and for the removal of any exceptions to this rule.