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Iraqi Kurd MPs vote to limit polygamy in
Kurdistan
31.10.2008
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October 31, 2008
Erbil-Hewler,
Kurdistan region "Iraq", — The parliament
in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, under
pressure from feminist groups, passed a law on
Thursday limiting the circumstances under which a
man may have more than one wife.
"We did not manage to prohibit polygamy outright,www.ekurd.net
but we succeeded in
strictly limiting it," female MP Khaman Zrar told
AFP.
Islam, the predominant religion in Iraq, allows a
man to have as many as four wives, as long as he can
support them in equal conditions, but many Muslim
countries prohibit polygamy.
However, the law of Iraq permits the practice.
Under the law adopted by
the Kurds, a man will be permitted to take a second
wife,www.ekurd.net
and no more, only in cases where his first wife
is unable to have children or suffers from a
sexually transmittable disease.
Laila Abdullah, a member of the Union of Kurdish
Women, said she regretted "that we could not ban
polygamy altogether," but said the group would
continue pressing parliament to do so.
On Tuesday, nearly 200
women from 40 women’s organizations staged a
demonstration in front of the Kurdistan Regional
Government’s (KRG) building in Erbil calling to
amend a Personal Status Law article allowing
polygamy.
“We demand equality between men and women in the
Personal Status Law, on which the
parliamentary legal committee is currently working,”
one of the organizers of the demonstration, Sayran
Abdullah, told VOI.
“We are particularly against men’s polygamy. Law no.
62 of the year 2001 banned polygamy with the
exception of certain cases,” Sayran, who is also a
member of Kurdistan’s Women Union, added.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, AFP
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