UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), both of which guarantee the
right to marry at one’s free will. Under Iraq’s Personal Status Law, 672 forced marriage is
prohibited and punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment. 673 The legal age for marriage
is 18, 674 however a 1979-amendment to the Personal Status Law lowered the minimum age
for marriage to 15 years with the consent of the parents, an adult brother or an adult married
sister. Despite these legal provisions, many women and young girls are forced to marry and
risk enduring violence if they reject their families’ choice, including “honour killings”.
Marriages of girls below the age of 15 are done according to religious customs and are not
legally recognized. In rural areas of Northern Iraq, a practice called Jin bi Jin, meaning
“a woman for a woman”, can be a form of forced marriage as it involves the exchange of
women between two families where no bride price is paid. Similar practices can also be
found in other areas of Iraq. Another custom, known as “exchange-for-blood marriage”,
involves giving a girl or woman in marriage to another family as compensation for
a killing. 675
c) Single Women and Women Head of Household
This group is made up of women on their own, or with their children, because their family
members or spouses were killed, 676 kidnapped or otherwise targeted, and because they risk
or have already faced harassment or attacks themselves. 677 Depending on the perpetrators,
additional factors such as a woman’s ethnicity, religion or professional background may put
her at even greater risk. Women in this group are typically targets of kidnapping, rape or
other forms of sexual harassment and abuse, including forced prostitution and human
trafficking. Women who do not benefit from any type of family network or tribal links to
protect them are even more at risk and are likely to be prime targets for traffickers. Those
who have no means of livelihood are further likely to fall prey to trafficking and
prostitution in order to survive. 678
672 See “Personal Status”.
673 Article 9 of the Personal Status Law, see above footnote 52.
674 Article 7 of the Personal Status Law, see above footnote 52.
675 See AI, Iraq – Decades of Suffering, February 2005, p. 22/23, http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/MDE
140012005ENGLISH/$File/MDE1400105.pdf; BBC News, Tribal justice takes hold in Iraq, 2 February
2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3449869.stm.
676 According to Iraqi Government officials and NGOs, more than 90 women become widows each day due
to continuing violence in the country; see IRIN, Iraq: Widow numbers rise in wake of violence, 26 April 2006,
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26320; according to the Iraqi organization Women Against
War, there are an estimated 400,000 widows in Baghdad alone; see: Joshua Partlow, Widows Often Find Help
Elusive in Iraq, The Washington Post, 23 July 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/07/22/AR2006072200920_pf.html. See also Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily, Iraq: Widows Become the
Silent Tragedy, IPS, 7 December 2006, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35751; AP, Violence in Iraq
increasingly targeting women, 22 November 2006, http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=
20061122-105650-7783r.
677 According to UNAMI HRO, women are also targeted as “a means to punish other members of the
family”; see UNAMI HRO, October 2006 Human Rights Report, p. 12, see above footnote 66.
678 See UNHCR, 2005 Eligibility Guidelines, p. 21, see above footnote 8.
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