Iraq: Urgent Need for Domestic Violence Law

International Women’s day in Baghdad this year was a day of mourning for women protests in Iraq. The overwhelming amount of protests is targeting the Iraqi legislature to pass new laws concerning domestic abuse.

According to Belkis Willie, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch, “Domestic violence has always plagued Iraq, we see case upon case of women and girls dying at the hands of their families. But Iraq's lawmakers have not done enough to save those lives.”

Statistics gathered from the Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS) of 2006, found that 1 in 5 Iraqi women are subject to physical domestic violence. A 2012 Planning Ministry study found that at least 36 percent of married women reported experiencing some form of psychological abuse from their husbands, 23 percent verbal abuse, 6 percent physical violence, and 9 percent sexual violence.

Domestic abuse still remains a relevant problem in Iraq due to custom understandings where there is a compromise with “physical punishment” of your wife and used for discipline of children, yet Iraqi’s criminal code criminalizes physical assault but lacks specific laws concerning domestic violence.

Due to the death of the 20-year-old woman from her husband, this has caught enormous attention to the region. “Najaf’s governor, Loai al-Yasiri, told Human Rights Watch on April 15 that the authorities had established an investigation committee and arrested the husband, father-in-law, and the husband’s uncle. Al-Yasiri said that this case would likely be resolved through a mediation in which the husband’s family’s Ashira (clan) would negotiate with Samira’s family’s Ashira to reach a non-judicial settlement.”

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