Reviewed and updated 22 August 2026.
By Aneeta Prem MBE
Iraq’s 2025 changes to personal-status law have been described through one dramatic phrase: “marriage at nine”. The reality is more complicated — and, after the later Ja’afari code was approved, more concerning than the first version of this article suggested.
The legal story happened in two stages. The January 2025 amendment initially required new personal-status codes to respect the existing statutory marriage-age limits. Months later, the Ja’afari code approved by Parliament introduced marriage eligibility linked to puberty, which Human Rights Watch says can be interpreted as allowing girls as young as nine or ten to marry.
Stage one: the January 2025 amendment
Iraq amended its Personal Status Law in early 2025. The amendment allows many Shia Muslim couples to choose a Ja’afari personal-status framework for matters including marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance.
The amendment entered into force on 17 February 2025.
At that stage, the final text said that the minimum marriage age in the personal-status codes should conform with Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law: generally 18, with judicial permission possible from 15 in specified circumstances.
That is why early reporting saying Iraq had simply set a national marriage age of nine was too crude.
Stage two: the later Ja’afari code
The position changed again when Parliament approved the Ja’afari Personal Status Code in August 2025.
Human Rights Watch reported in February 2026 that the code allows marriage at “puberty”. In some interpretations of Ja’afari jurisprudence, that can mean girls as young as nine or ten.
This creates an obvious tension between the earlier age safeguard and the later code.
The result is that it would now be equally misleading to say the “age nine” concern was simply false. The more accurate position is that Iraq’s general Personal Status Law retains an 18/15 framework, while the later Ja’afari code introduces a route that rights organisations say can facilitate marriage at much younger ages.
Why this matters beyond one number
Child marriage is only one part of the concern.
Human Rights Watch says the Ja’afari code also weakens protections for women in divorce, child custody, inheritance and the ability to choose which legal regime governs a marriage.
Its 2026 World Report notes that a husband may be able to move a marriage into the Ja’afari framework without his wife’s consent or knowledge, and that fathers gain strong custody advantages once children reach a specified age.
These are questions of legal equality as well as marriage age.
Why the legal sequence matters
Human-rights reporting often moves faster than legislation.
The early campaign against the amendment focused heavily on the risk of marriage at nine. Campaigning helped secure an age safeguard in the amendment itself. But the later code then introduced rules that revived the underlying concern through a different route.
That is why a serious article needs dates and stages rather than one permanent headline.
Accuracy means being willing to correct an exaggeration and then correct the correction when the law changes again.
Child marriage risk is not limited to formal registration
Even where formal law sets an age threshold, children can still be exposed through unregistered religious or customary ceremonies, judicial exceptions or marriages recorded only later.
The European Union Agency for Asylum has warned that underage marriages may continue informally or be registered once the girl reaches the formal legal age.
Protection therefore depends on more than the wording of one statute. It depends on whether girls can stay in education, refuse marriage, reach independent help and have their age and consent checked safely.
What this means for UK safeguarding
UK professionals should not assume that a marriage recognised or facilitated abroad is safe from a UK safeguarding perspective.
In England and Wales, a child under 18 cannot lawfully marry. Conduct intended to cause a child to enter a marriage can also amount to the forced-marriage offence even where coercion is not proved.
Where a young person is being taken overseas for marriage, safeguarding action should focus on the individual risk before travel wherever possible.
Final word
The strongest criticism of Iraq’s reforms is not a slogan. It is the legal record.
The January 2025 amendment initially preserved the 18/15 age framework. The later Ja’afari code then introduced marriage at puberty, creating a route that rights organisations say can expose very young girls to marriage.
The real issue is not whether one headline was perfectly phrased. It is whether girls can be treated as marriageable before adulthood and whether women receive equal protection inside the family-law system.
Sources and further reading
- Human Rights Watch: Marriage Without Safeguards, February 2026
- Human Rights Watch: World Report 2026 — Iraq
- EUAA: Iraq child-marriage country information