Parliamentary Family Committee: Proposed amendment to Article 57 includes “great injustice” to women

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[size=52]Parliamentary Family Committee: Proposed amendment to Article 57 includes “great injustice” to women[/size]

[size=45]The head of the parliamentary Women, Family and Childhood Committee, Dunya Al-Shammari, considered that the proposal to amend Article 57, which is concerned with child custody, currently being presented in parliament, includes “great injustice” to women, pointing out that “there is no Sharia or Islamic law, or any of the laws of neighboring countries,” that stipulates the withdrawal of child custody from a woman after she marries again.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Shammari said in an interview with the official media, “The law in force and applied in Iraqi courts is unjust to men’s rights, so we hope that there will be a draft law or a draft that cares about the child, and after that the rights of the mother and father in raising and educating the child.” She explained that “amending the law, which faced strong objections within the council, will not be presented during the current legislative session after the legal committee presented it, and I do not believe that it will pass, unless there is a draft law that the political blocs agree upon.”[/size]
[size=45]She explained that “the committee received the United Nations delegation and the political advisor of the US Embassy office in Iraq, and we discussed amending Law 57 and the laws in force for the Yazidi survivors and displaced persons from Al-Hol camp law,” noting that “the US advisor stressed the importance of custody being shared between the father and mother, because the current law deprives one of the parties of custody, and therefore joint custody must be achieved.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Shammari added, “The committee demanded that the father be accompanied and that the visitation not take place inside the courts, because it is an injustice to the father or mother, and an injustice to the child in custody by having him be in places that are not suitable for children.”[/size]
[size=45]Article 57 of the current law stipulates that the mother has the right to custody and upbringing of the child during the marriage and after separation, unless the child is harmed by that. The law also stipulates that the custodian must be an adult, sane, trustworthy, and capable of raising and maintaining the child. The custody of a divorced mother does not lapse upon her marriage. In this case, the court decides the right of the mother or father to custody in light of the interest of the child. The paragraphs of the aforementioned article also stipulate that if the child reaches the age of fifteen, he has the right to choose to reside with whomever he wishes from his parents or one of his relatives until he reaches the age of eighteen if the court finds that he is of sound mind in this choice.[/size]
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