The Vavengers BBC Politics coverage of the Iraqi legislation posing risk of forced marriages against children

Trigger warning: *Discussions of child exploitation, forced marriage and sexual violence

The Vavengers is outraged with the recent amendment proposals imposed by the Iraqi government, posing a risk against girl children as young as 9 and boy children aged 15 at risk of forced marriage. The Personal Status Law amendment of the Iraqi parliament is a direct attack on the rights of women and girls both on the ground in Iraq and globally for diaspora communities. Speaking about the law our CEO Sema Gornall made the following statement: “Children cannot consent to marriage, girl children aren’t brides, they belong in school, and legalising child marriage through indirect implications as such would be legalised child sexual exploitation.”

The news story had two parts, the first part involved an interview by Helen Drew at our campaigning headquarters in London interviewing our Campaign Ambassador Payzee Mahmod and our Patron Sir Max Hill KC who both stated that children everywhere must be safeguarded against any form of harm. Speaking to Helen, Payzee stated, “Child marriage took away my childhood, it carries lifelong harm.” As a legal expert Sir Max also made this statement in the interview with Helen: “Under the laws that the Iraqi government now imposed, an indirect impact could be children being subjected to forced marriage at an increasingly young age.” In the live studio debate hosted by Samantha Simmonds, Sema Gornall was joined by Andrew Boff AM and Danny Beales MP. Sema drew the connection between forced marriage against children with modern slavery and sexual exploitation with facts and known data figures.

Danny Beales MP responded to Sema’s expert opinion and Helen’s interviews with: “VAWG is far too prevalent in London and in our society. We must do more, this government is committed to halving it in the next ten years which is ambitious but important commitment, and we need to drive action now to enforce the laws that already exist, to provide support to people so they can advocate for themselves access that support, and to ensure that services are actively finding instances like this investigating and taking action.”

Andrew Boff AM who has a previous track record of working on anti-modern slavery policy work has said: “It’s most useful for Sema to draw the equivalence to human trafficking, of course it is, it absolutely is kidnapping. There are laws in place to prevent trafficking but it’s seeing it as trafficking that may be the problem. I think there needs to be more work done.”

The Vavengers have always campaigned to have forms of abuse such as FGM and forced marriage be recognised as modern slavery in legislations. We will continue our campaigning work to safeguard women and girls here in the UK and globally.

If you are in the UK, or overseas UK resident or citizen, and you or someone you know is at risk of forced marriage, please reach out to the Forced Marriage Unit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/forced-marriage