War and the Rights of Children:
America’s Proxy Government Aims to Legalize Pedophilia in Occupied Iraq
Less than a month before
the eleventh anniversary of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq, the
near destruction of much of the country, heritage, culture, secularism,
education, health services and all State institutions, the country is
poised to revert “two thousand years” say campaigners.
On 25th February Iraq’s Cabinet approved a draft law lowering the age of legal marriage for females to nine years old.
Iraq was, prior to the
invasion, a fiercely secular country, with a broadly equal male, female
workforce and with women benefiting from a National Personal Status Law,
introduced in 1959, which remained “one of the most liberal in the Arab
world, with respect to women’s rights.”
The legal age for marriage
was set at eighteen, forced marriages were banned and polygamy
restricted. Cohesion between communities was enhanced and fostered by:
“eliminating the differential treatment of Sunnis and Shiites under the
law (and erasing differentiation) between the various religious
communities …” Women’s rights in divorce, child custody and inheritance
were an integral part of the Law, with Article 14 stating that all
Iraqis are equal under the law.(1)