Adwi shifts back focus on the amendment. through engaging experts and civil society in the must-have conversation, the Ja’afari law.
Five months have passed since the personal status law amendment. The Ja’afari law is now in use in the Iraqi courts, apart from the Kurdistan region.
Restricting financial rights, revoking custody, and the cherry on top, paving the way for child marriage.
Since August, the courts have been crowded with couples changing their contracts from the old law to the new law, a decision where the wife has no say in, and according to the law, if she objects, her plea will not be heard.
The civil society organizations tried their best to stop it in the beginning, but slowly, after five months, no one is talking about it. The truth is, the Iraqi election campaigns, Constant internal conflicts, electricity blackouts, and drone attacks overshadowed the amendment.
With all that happening in the background, the 16 days of activism seem like a good chance to reopen the door for this conversation. Even though the motto of this year’s activism was Digital violence, some activists here and there mentioned the law as a human rights violation.
As for Wadi organization and its partners, including Adwi, the amendment was a pivot point, as opposed to other organizations, Wadi’s work started from the amendment implementation.
All seven partners of the active citizenship program altered their activities to combat the amendment. Conducting research and interviews to refocus attention on the amendment.
Wadi’s partner meeting regarding the Amendment
As for Adwi, the amendment became one of the main topics of discussion when conducting awareness seminars in Erbil, Rania, and Garmian.
Most recent attempts against the amendment, Awareness and development for women and children in Iraq (Adwi), organized an extensive Panel in the Garmian Institute, highlighting the amendment as a social danger to women and children in Iraq.
The panel was held on the second of December, hosting a consulting lawyer, a women’s health expert, and a mental health specialist.
It began by introducing the law and the state of human rights in Iraq, then analyzing the amendment socially, physically, and mentally.
“Early marriage comes with a package of mental illness; teenagers go through many changes during puberty with no emotional knowledge of how to handle it. On top of all that, imagine adding the most difficult and emotionally intensive experience “marriage” to the equation”
