The masculinity of society prevents girls from proving their existence.

Every morning, Arouba, from the agricultural area of Swaib west of Baghdad, begins by milking her two cows, filling a few two-liter plastic containers with their milk, and then sending them with her little brother and a cousin to sell in the nearby Al-Rabi’a market.

It’s a routine she has been accustomed to since she was a small child, within boundaries drawn for her that she will never be able to surpass. She says this while petting one of the cows and adds, “I have no rights; I exist only to serve others.”

The Iraqi woman does not seem sad as she repeats this phrase, but rather more indifferent. She places the containers in a large plastic box inside a wooden cart and continues, “The first time I realized this was years ago when my father—may he rest in peace—allowed me, after I begged him, to buy a phone for myself. After I chose a used one, the seller asked me for an ID card in order to give me a SIM card.”

She says, “At that time, I was over twenty years old. I realized that I did not have a personal ID, and that I could not buy or register anything in my name without it.”

On that day, her father told her that, in addition to her two married sisters, they had not been issued civil status identity cards. This means that none of them have an official existence in the state records, and they are deprived of many of their rights. He justified to her that day by saying, “Your sisters are in their Husband’s house, and you are under my care, so you won’t need anything.”

Arouba adds, “I asked him moments later if my brothers had identity cards, and he replied: Yes, because they are heads of households and business owners, needing to buy properties and agricultural machinery, and to handle government transactions that require identity and official documents, as their children are registered in schools.”

Arouba is not an exception but one among dozens of Iraqi women who are born without birth certificates recorded in their families’ civil status records, living their lives without receiving an education and being deprived of many of their rights, and dying without death certificates being issued for them.

Tribalism in Society 

Social researcher Ali Salem states that the Iraqi state has barely survived 100 years since its establishment in 1923, spending more than half of that time preoccupied with “wars, international sanctions, security deterioration, economic crises, and political conflicts.” 

He adds: “Moreover, Mesopotamia was under the rule of the backward Ottoman Empire for over four centuries before that. 

As a result, the prevailing tribalism in Iraqi society has maintained its customs and laws, and “the ruling authorities during periods of state weakness, which are numerous and varied, have overlooked the practices of tribes and the laws they impose that contradict individual rights and the laws and constitution of the state, because the tribes provided the army and police with fighters and recruits, and supported the president’s chair or the dominant parties in exchange for money and privileges.” 

Therefore, women’s rights in many parts of Iraq, especially in the remote villages in the south and west of the country, particularly their right to citizenship by obtaining official documents, “are part of the rights that remain unaddressed, despite the existence of laws regulating this right.” 

Researcher Salem says: “Thus, many women over decades, especially during times of crises, have been born, lived, and died on this land without the state recognizing them, as they did not attend schools, their marriage contracts were not documented in courts, and they neither inherited nor bequeathed anything, nor were death certificates issued for them after their passing!”

It is mentioned that the reason for the lack of registration of women and the issuance of official documents for them is due to “the tribal view that women are in a lower position than men and that they do not inherit, so that family money and property, especially land, do not go into the ownership of their husbands and exit from the ownership of the family or clan.”

The other reason cited by the social researcher is “the prevailing tribal belief that a woman’s place is in her parents’ or husband’s house, so she does not need education or to own things in her name; these are all matters that concern men, and her main concern is to give birth to as many males as possible!”

The academic specialist in sociology, Pierre Ahmad, confirms the existence of a societal culture in many areas of the country that encourages the deprivation of women of their rights, including sometimes the right to exist in state documents, pointing to one of the common examples of how a wide segment of society, whether in rural or urban areas, views women, which is the way they deal with their deaths.

He says: “We often see condolence banners for women that only carry phrases like wife, sister, daughter, or mother, and some register their wives’ numbers in their mobile phones under the name ‘the house.’ It is very common in Iraq to hear someone say, for example: I took the house to the market or to the doctor, and so on.”

The educator Inas Hadi Saadoun says that during her work in girls’ schools, she has met many mothers with their young daughters, aged between 8 and 10 years, who wish to enroll them as listeners in those schools “because they do not have official documents to register them like the other students.” Saadoun points out that she is aware of women who want to proceed with the registration of their daughters in official records “but the difficulty escalates for illiterate women who are prevented from leaving their homes for any reason, relying directly on their husbands, fathers, or brothers.” Saadoun mentions that the series of problems does not stop there; it grows “when these women get divorced, leaving the children in a state of non-recognition as legitimate children from a real marriage, which is a behavior practiced by some men to evade responsibility for the rights of the wife and children.”

Long-standing usurped rights

For his part, the head of the Kurdistan Organization for Human Rights Monitoring, Hoshyar Malo, believes that the lack of official documents for women is rooted in the “tribalism” that treats women as if they are not human. The prevailing and inherited collective mindset focuses on the idea that women do not need official documents because women do not buy or sell.

He points out that this issue is not limited to the non-registration of female births but also extends to “manipulating lineage documents by registering one of the children under the names of brothers, sisters, or other relatives.”

Malo emphasizes that political conflicts and wars lead to many being deprived of obtaining official papers and documents, citing an example: “During the previous regime, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters engaged in armed conflict with the regular Iraqi forces faced difficulties in registering their children because many would secretly visit their homes, resulting in their wives becoming pregnant and giving birth at home with the help of midwives, leaving the child without official documents, as the security authorities would discover that those fighters were visiting their homes despite being pursued.”

Proving Parentage

Judge Salem Rawdan confirms that some procedures for rectifying status to obtain official documents can take years, citing “a woman who approached the courts to establish her daughter’s parentage from 1994 until 2017!” 

According to Iraqi law, those who do not possess documentary evidence and are not registered in the civil status departments “are not considered Iraqi individuals with the capacity to litigate or exercise their rights, unless they prove their known lineage through legal means; then they will not be considered of unknown parentage but rather as individuals not registered in the civil status records.” 

According to the judge, regarding individuals with unknown parents or one known parent and the other unknown “such as a known mother and unknown father or vice versa, and in some cases a known father and unknown grandfather, there are several procedures that must be undertaken to prove parentage.” 

Meanwhile, former community police director, Ghalib Al-Attiyah, clarifies that during his work, he observed many minor girls who were married outside the court through “religious contracts” without possessing any identification documents, including “civil status and Iraqi nationality cards, and other cases of depriving girls and women of education and even approaching government departments and conducting transactions due to their lack of proof of existence. Some women may face denial from their husbands and denial of their children’s parentage, exposing them to various risks, to the extent that some become easy prey for drug gangs, prostitution networks, and human trafficking.”

The investigator continued, via phone, with one of the tribal chiefs from Karbala province, south of the capital Baghdad, who requested not to be named, and denied that the delay or lack of issuance of the girls’ documents contradicts their rights, saying: “A woman eats, drinks, and gets married, and not having those documents does not harm her at all.” He illustrates this by saying: “My first wife does not have a document; her father is deceased, and her uncles are not available to register her in their family record, so she registered her children under the names of my other wives, and everyone’s rights are preserved.”

The chief expresses his astonishment at “women filing complaints against their brothers in courts over inheritance or abuse or other matters,” adding, “In our tribe, these things are rejected. Women are emotional, and they have a small minds so they can be easily manipulated, which is why I am prevent them from owning phones and using the internet.”

Displacement as a Cause of the Problem

Lawyer Mohammed Ahmed Younis, a specialist in personal status lawsuits, says it is difficult to determine a specific percentage or number for the unregistered individuals in the civil registry in Iraq. He notes that the failure to register female births is an old problem in tribal society, and its emergence is attributed to migration from rural areas to cities over the past four decades.

He lists some types of migrations and displacements that Iraq has witnessed, most notably after the invasion of Kuwait in 1991, and the subsequent deterioration of the agricultural situation due to drought and the economic sanctions imposed on the country for over a decade, which “forced tens of thousands of rural and desert residents to migrate to cities in search of water and job opportunities.”

After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, many villagers and rural residents “were affiliated with the security apparatus and found themselves unemployed after the decision by the American governor at the time, Paul Bremer, to dissolve the security forces established during the Ba’ath Party era. Many had no choice but to seek refuge in cities in search of work.”

Younis also refers to another wave of migration caused by armed fundamentalist groups that entered into conflict with American and Iraqi forces from 2003 until 2014, noting that “many villagers, especially Shia, Yazidis, Christians, and Sunnis, were displaced.”

After ISIS took control of four provinces in June 2014, “the largest displacement in Iraq’s history occurred, with the number of displaced people reaching nearly four million, who headed to areas and camps in the Kurdistan region, Baghdad, and other provinces of the country.”

Lawyer Mohammed Ahmed notes that the movement of the population from rural to urban areas highlighted the need to register children in schools or for families to obtain a residency card, security sponsorship, or food ration card, as well as to visit government offices for other transactions. “At that time, it became evident that many women lacked identification documents, which are necessary to formalize marriage contracts instead of the tribal agreements made in the village, and then to establish the lineage of children to their parents or one of them and subsequently register them in the civil registry, allowing them to enter schools and interact with government offices.”

Another lawyer specializing in civil cases at the Rusafa Court in Baghdad, who preferred to remain unnamed, states that “tribes have a significant influence in society and in state institutions through representatives in the executive and legislative branches.” He adds that tribes “possess arsenals of medium and light weapons that enable them to engage in battles, and many have occurred in recent years, especially in southern Iraq. They forcefully seize lands from tribes they have disputes with and sometimes challenge the state, so how can weak women demand their rights?”

Primitive Life 

According to social researcher Rana Al-Janabi, there are women in Iraq “living a primitive life as if they are in the Middle Ages and not in an era of development and technology” due to this issue. She explains: “The lack of recognition of their existence through the non-registration of their birth certificates is merely an old custom practiced by some tribes, as the prevailing masculine mentality believes that a woman is just a womb or a vessel for reproduction and is often despised if her womb produces only females.” 

The researcher adds that despite the existence of civil legislation, “many women are denied their inheritance rights, and those who demand them are ostracized or even killed, as they are deprived of the right to obtain documents proving their existence.” 

In a small village on the Al-Bathaa road, west of the city of Nasiriyah, the center of Dhi Qar Governorate south of Baghdad, a shepherdess named Labiba (45 years old), a name she chose for herself, says: “I do not have any documents like my brothers and father, and I know nothing of this life except for taking care of the sheep and looking after my children and husband.” She points to her small flock and adds: “We rely on them a lot in addition to our land to manage our living expenses. This is all I know of my world.” 

She said: “My sister died more than thirty years ago, and all that remains of her is her name, which we sometimes whisper among ourselves.” She pauses for a moment and then continues in a hushed voice, “Because they killed her.”

“Her sister, who was two years older than her, exchanged glances of admiration with a young man from the village and her male siblings found out. So the girl had no choice but to flee and hide in her aunt’s house in a nearby village.

Lubiba says: “I have seven brothers; they gathered that night with my father, extinguished the fire  under the coffee pot, and the eldest removed his headband, which in our traditions means that my sister will be killed to wash away the shame.” A few days later, the angry brother fired a hail of bullets at the girl who had not exchanged even a word with the young man, according to Lubiba’s account, and she was buried without any ceremonies.

Lubiba clearly remembers a phrase her father said at that time: ‘The best thing I did in my life was that I didn’t register her in the population… so they considered that she didn’t exist at all!’”

Legal treatments and solutions

Lawyer Anfal Zaki Makhlad states that begging gangs and prostitution networks exploit girls and women without identification documents, leading to human trafficking crimes. She suggests that the government expedite the general population census in every part of Iraq, after decades of postponement.

She acknowledges, “This will not end the issue of unregistered females in official records, but it will reduce the number of unregistered individuals, provided that the census is conducted accurately and with the participation and cooperation of village and neighborhood leaders.”

For his part, writer and researcher Adel Kamal recommends other practical and radical solutions, which include “not allowing religious men to organize marriage contracts outside of courts, with imposing deterrent penalties on religious men and guardians who violate this, as well as on both parties to the contract.” He also suggests preventing midwives from practicing outside hospitals: “The presence of midwives means that women do not visit the hospital where they need their documents to be admitted.”

Escape to the Light

Mirna Samuel, born in Basra Governorate, is one of those who found a solution to this problem. But it was not easy, as she chose to immigrate to Germany and start her new life from there. She says: “My name was Suhad and I was in Iraq, and I do not know the exact year of my birth, all I know is that I was born in the early nineties of the last century.”

She continues: “My mother’s marriage took place outside the court, without any rights for my mother, not even a room of her own. After a while after my birth, my father refused to recognize me or register me and married for the second and third time.”

Mirna recalls: “My mother fell ill without anyone caring for her and died in the kitchen. Her last words to me were: ‘Escape from here by any means.’”

Months after her mother’s death, Mirna managed to escape to Najaf, where she worked as a maid to reach Germany in early 2016.

She says with regret: “I lived in Iraq for many years without any identification papers, education or future. There were relatives and religious men who knew about my situation, but no one helped me. She concludes: “I found a chance to escape. I am now a German citizen. I have a German name and passport and I have my own entity and rights. If I had stayed there, I would have lived as a slave and died without having any rights.”

*Some of the names mentioned in the investigation are pseudonyms at the request of the sources to preserve their safety.

*The investigation was conducted under the supervision of the “Nirij” network for investigative reporting and the “CFI” organization.