National Identity Card Law Deprives Members of Iraqi minority
groups of the Right to Choose Their Religious Identity
Aya Mansour
17 September 2026
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This investigation documents how Article 26 of Iraq’s National
Identity Card Law compels minors to adopt the religion of either
of their parents who convert to Islam. This happens without
their knowledge or consent, and prevents them from reclaiming
their original religion even after they reach adulthood. Our
report highlights cases of Christians, Yazidis and
Sabian-Mandaeans affected by this restriction, but who only
became aware of it later in life - usually when they married. At
this point they found their rights over custody and inheritance,
and even to marry in accordance with their own rituals, were
curtailed.
“I passed out …I felt like I was in another reality.”
One Sunday, a 33-year-old woman called Sally (not her real name)
making the rounds of government offices in Baghdad, trying to
obtain an identity card, as she was about to get married. These
cards were introduced in Iraq in 2016 to replace certificates of
nationality, civil status ID and residence permits. As she made
her way from one counter to the next, she had no idea that her
application would be halted over the question of her religion,
and that what seemed to be a simple item on the form would turn
out to be an obstacle to her marriage and to the new chapter of
her life she was hoping to start.
Sally was born to Christian parents, but found out she was
officially registered as Muslim. She thought it was a mistake
that just needed some bureaucratic procedure to correct. But the
official said there was no mistake, explaining that she had been
registered as Muslim at the age of 11 after her father converted
to Islam. She lost control: “I passed out …I felt like I was in
another reality.”
Sally grew up in the home of her mother, who had remained
Christian after she separated from Sally’s father. He remarried,
and Sally has only a few sporadic memories of him.From
childhood, she was used to going to church for festivals and
services, and thought of herself as a Christian throughout those
years. She became engaged to a Christian man, and was married in
a Catholic church service.
This investigation looks into how a parent’s change of religion
affects the official registration of their minor children.. This
is because of Article 26 of the National Identity Card Law,
which those affected by it believe imposes a religious identity
on children, deprives families of the right to define
themselves, and drives some to emigrate in search of religious
safety.
The official told Sally that her registered religious status
prevented the marriage from going ahead, and that her only
options were either to break off the engagement, or for her
fiancé to convert to Islam, otherwise she faced being treated as
an apostate from Islam.
In the first few days, Sally clung to the hope that the matter
could be resolved quickly. But the answers she received were
vague and confusing. She says that some were discriminatory and
threatened her religious identity.
After months of going back and forth between the National Card
Affairs Directorate and the court, she discovered that her
situation was like that of other Christian, Yazidi and Sabian
families who had their official religious registration imposed
on them.
Sally found evidence of this in the Official Gazette, which
published the National Identity Card Law No. 3 of 2016 in its
February 1, 2016 issue, no. 4396. Paragraph 2 of Article 26
stipulated that underage children must follow the religion of
any of their parents who converts to Islam, without specifying
the minor’s rights on reaching adulthood and becoming legally
independent from their parents.
Sally hired a lawyer and applied to have her registration
corrected. She then appealed, through the Court of Cassation,
against the decision over her registration and that of her
father. The lawyer told her that her chances of winning the case
were slim and advised her to emigrate, given how difficult it
was to change one’s religion once it has been established in the
official records.
Article 2 of the Iraqi constitution stipulates that “Islam is
the official religion of the state and a fundamental source of
legislation” and that “no law may be enacted that contradicts
the tenets of Islam”.
The Federal Court of Cassation affirmed this in a civil ruling -
published on the Supreme Judicial Council’s website in 2012 -
which stipulated that “anyone who has become Muslim, whether in
their own right or by virtue of the religion of one of their
parents, cannot renounce Islam”. This limits the possibility of
someone amending their religious status, since the law has no
mechanism allowing them to return to their previous religion or
to correct the religious status that appears in their records.
After months of deliberation, the court rejected Sally’s
application and her appeal, and left her official religious
status unchanged. Throughout this time, she says, the church was
trying to persuade her to leave Iraq.
Everything Sally had saved for her wedding went toward her legal
case. She was criticized and blamed for staying registered as a
Muslim for years without taking any action, to which she would
reply: “How could I do that when I’d no idea what happened? My
life was torn apart. My lawyer pleaded with them and did what he
could. I felt they wanted to expel me from my own country. I
tried to get my religion back legally, but they rejected my
application and then my appeal.”
Sally clutches her gold ring tightly, her hopes of marriage
dashed. Her fiancé’s family broke off the engagement, fearing
his religion could be changed in the records too, and he was
adamant he wanted to stay a Christian. Ever since then, Sally
has asked constantly: who would agree to have their religion
taken away from them?
She developed severe anaemia, lost her appetite, was unable to
sleep for months, and her weight dropped to under 50 kilograms.
Today, she is trying, with the help of a local organization, to
leave Iraq for a place where she can practice freely. Describing
her situation, she says: “I’m being forced out of this country,
though I never wanted to leave. Today I’ve lost everything here;
my life is at a standstill.”
Details of several other cases here
01
Escape by sea and children not registered in Iraq
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“I survived for two months in forests, in snow and rain. I
crossed the sea and nearly drowned. I endured
imprisonment, hunger, fear and the cold, wondering whether
my cause was worth it all. Yes, I wanted to leave Iraq by
any means necessary, because of the religion imposed on
me.”
Shaker (not his real name) is a 37-year-old who was
registered as Muslim at birth, because his grandfather had
converted to Islam and this was passed down to his
children and grandchildren. Throughout that time, the
family continued to practice the Yazidi faith secretly.The
family only discovered the grandfather’s conversion when
they went to the Civil Status Office. Shaker says: “They
were on edge, bottling up their anger. Then a row broke
out at home. My mother told me, in tears, that my
grandfather had declared himself a Muslim and then
disappeared, and that my father had been a minor at the
time. Later, when he came of age, he wasn’t allowed to
return to his own faith.” The family have avoided talking
about the issue because of the pain it caused them.
Shaker fell in love with a girl, but he broke it off
without telling her the truth about his registration. He
says: “She might have understood, but her family would
have refused to let her marry someone registered as a
Muslim. It’s hard for others to believe that I’ve stayed a
Yazidi.” He adds: “My life, my hopes … they are all
shattered. And my mom told me that I’d suffer the same
loss with other women.”
He tried to put his registration right, with the help of a
friend, and travelled for the first time to Baghdad, but
came back when they told him he had lost his case. After
graduating, he began to consider emigrating and left Iraq
illegally by sea in 2016.
Some of his cousins, who were in the same situation, had
emigrated to Germany. They told him he would be able to
get married there without documents showing him as a
Muslim. He says: “I faced death many times, but it was
worth it. Staying in Iraq would have meant giving in to
the law, and my Yazidi children would have had to live in
secret, practicing their religion as though it were
shameful and disgraceful.”
A year after applying for asylum, Shaker was granted
residence on humanitarian grounds. He says that his Yazidi
background helped him, but being registered as a Muslim on
his Iraqi card made it difficult for him to prove his
Yazidi identity and forced him to spend large sums on a
document to confirm it. He adds: “Before I came here, I
compiled a file containing dozens of documents about my
stolen religious identity. I was scared the immigration
authorities would dismiss it as unimportant. Everyone in
my own country ignored my case, so how would others see
it?”
Shaker was married in a religious ceremony by a Yazidi
cleric and has three children, the eldest of whom is nine.
His children live without Iraqi documents, because his
marriage has not been registered in court, and there is no
document proving he is married and the children are his.
To obtain identity cards for them means they would have to
be registered as Muslims. “They’re uprooting me and my
children from our own country,” he says. “My friends have
managed to get documents for their children that protect
their citizenship, but I’ve not been able to. My children
know their religion, but they don’t know what would happen
to them in Iraq, a country they’ve visited as foreigners,
with their German nationality.”
He says that an influential figure offered to get his
registration amended in exchange for money, so that he
could register his children. Shaker offered fifty thousand
euros to have the word “Yazidi” reinstated on his
registration document. Efforts to do this went on for
months, but he was eventually told it was impossible. He
also contacted Yazidi MPs and religious leaders, but they
told him to keep silent. “Our representatives openly admit
they’re scared to talk openly about this issue. It’s
madness, I just can’t accept it.”
Shaker is trying to persuade his parents and siblings to
sell their property and emigrate to Germany, so that they
can practice their faith openly. “It’s slavery. They
control us and decide for us what religion we follow.. by
force,” he says. “Because of a decision my grandfather
took to escape a gang, the lives of more than twenty
people across several generations have been ruined … for
no reason.” He wonders about the fate of his relatives who
are still in Iraq, adding: “One day my son might take me
to task for bringing him into this world, when he sees
that no one acknowledges his religion.”
02
Saafan: Forty years unmarried because of his religious record
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Saafan (not his real name) lives in Bashiqa, north of
Nineveh. Now 40, his dream of marriage and having children
are out of reach. Relatives and neighbours ask him why
this is, and some offer to help him, assuming the problem
is financial. But every time he is asked he gives a
different answer, because, he says, if he were to reveal
his religious registration, Yazidi families would reject
him as a prospective hisband.
Saafan has always lived as a Yazidi, at home and in his
community, while his state documents say he is Muslim. The
registration began when his grandfather converted to Islam
in 1969, and that was passed down to the members of the
family, 14 of whom appear as Muslims in the records.
He says: “My father was forced to register his marriage in
court so that my brothers and I could go to school.. And
he agreed with the teachers that we’d be exempt from
Islamic education. But even so, my mind got confused
between the two belief systems. And when I found out the
truth, I just couldn’t take it in, that being from
religious minority was enough to have us thrown out of
court before we could even get to see the judge.”
He says that fear has haunted his family for decades, and
their attempts to resolve the situation always ended with
officials threatening them. “They told us: ‘Are you mad?
You want to leave Islam? You’ll be beheaded,’” he says.
Another time, a soldier stopped his uncle going into court
and told him: “God has guided you away from unbelief, and
now you want to go back to it?”’ Each time, the family
would return home frightened and disheartened.
After the death of his mother, who was distressed by the
situation the family were in, Saafan decided to stop the
religious registration being passed through the family and
reclaim his faith. His heart breaks every time a child is
born into a Yazidi family and the parents face a choice:
register the child as Muslim or leave the child without
official documents.
He started legal proceedings without clear legal guidance,
and his case eventually reached a local minority rights
organization, which appointed a lawyer specialising in
Article 26 to defend him pro bono. But then he was told
the case fell outside the jurisdiction of the local civil
registry office, and that pursuing it could put his family
at risk.
Saafan took the family’s documents to the Directorate of
Civil Status, Passports and Residence in Baghdad, where
staff advised him to obtain a court order that could be
enforced by the Nineveh Civil Registry Office. He came
back and began the procedure in his own name. But then the
lawyer advised him that case should be in his aunt’s name,
because she was the first in the family to be affected by
this civil-status issue. She was only 5 when her father
converted to Islam – an age at which she was unable to
understand or choose her religion, or object to the
registration.
The family’s lawyer, Yuhanna, explains that their case is
based on the fact that the grandfather converted to Islam
in 1969, before the Civil Status Law No. 65 of 1972 was
enacted, which established the principle that minors must
follow the religion of whichever parent converts to Islam.
He argues that the aunt’s registration as a Muslim was
based on a law passed after the event, and that this is
therefore a circumvention of the law, done by exploiting
people’s ignorance.
More than seven months on, the family is still awaiting a
final ruling. Five court hearings have been scheduled, but
the representative of the National Identity Card
Directorate did not turn up to the first two. And after
that, there were a series of postponements.
“Because I’m a different religion, my country treats me as
if I don’t exist,” says Saafan. “If I had the money, I’d
get out now.”
03
Abduction, torture, intimidation, an unfinished education and
waiting to emigrate
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Saadi (not his real name) is now 33, but was eight when
his mother converted to Islam - so she could finalize her
divorce - and left. He only discovered that his religious
registration had changed after his father was killed in
front of him, during the sectarian violence of 2007, and
his uncles took him and his three brothers from Baghdad to
al-Hamdaniya in Nineveh.
As it proved impossible to transfer their civil-status
records and update their identity documents, so they had
to stop going to school, and Saadi began working at an
early age to support them. He retained his old Christian
identity document until he turned 18, when he applied to
have his civil-status record corrected. But a year and a
half later, the Ministry of Justice rejected his request.
He continued to use his old ID, which led to him being
questioned at checkpoints and racially abused. In 2016, he
was arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist and
released on bail on condition that he obtain an identity
document registering him as a Muslim.
Saadi appeared on television talking about his case, and
was then abducted by unknown assailants and held for two
days. He says that he was beaten, tortured and threatened
with being killed if he continued to speak out. He
contacted Christian MPs and several churches, who advised
him to leave Iraq.
But leaving Iraq would have been difficult for Saadi, who
was working as a security guard at a church and was
preparing to get married. His fiancée’s family insisted
that his civil status registration be corrected, so he
spent large sums of money trying to reach officials and
present his case, but to no avail. He says: “I began to
feel overwhelmed by despair and anger.. My fiancée left me
and went abroad with her family, and I was left without an
education or a wife. I am afraid of getting involved with
someone and dragging her into this suffering.”
He kept trying for more than 4 years, until finally
officials at the Baghdad Civil Registry offered to amend
the religious registration for $3,500 for each family
member – $15,000 in total. He asked the church to help,
and one of the bishops expressed his willingness to do so,
but backed down when he was asked for the initial sum of
$5,000.
At the suggestion of one of his friends, Saadi asked a
judge to help him, or at least help his sisters obtain
their documents so they could marry. But he says the judge
mocked him and told him there was no way to resolve his
case. He warned Saadi he would be seen as an apostate if
he tried, and would be executed or stoned to death.
He says: “I told my brothers our struggle to reclaim our
faith was over. We’ve grown up and missed our chance for
education, marriage and a normal life.” Saadi left for
Jordan, where he has been living for six years waiting for
a response to his application to emigrate to Canada. “All
these years have been wasted,” he says.
He points out that his sister, who died at the age of 10
before their mother converted to Islam, also appears in
the family register as a Muslim. “What greater religious
persecution is there than that?” he asks.
04
A son deprived of the right to have children
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Paulus says that his son Josef (not his real name) was 4
when his mother converted to Islam in 1988, while his
three sisters were still minors. The children remained
oblivious to the consequences of this until one of the
daughters visited the Dohuk Civil Status Department to
prepare her marriage documents, at which point the family
discovered that their religious status had been changed.
Two of the children managed, after lengthy proceedings, to
restore their religion, because they had already reached
18 by the time their cases were reviewed. But the
applications of the other two were rejected after they had
come of age. The cost of lawyers and of pursuing these
cases meant Paulus could not follow up on all his
children’s cases. The church, meanwhile, said the ruling
was outside its remit, even though it had been approached
more than once by officials. The civil registry offices
also said it was impossible to amend the religious
registration and their only advice was to leave Iraq.
Josef, the only son, wanted to marry a Christian girl, but
her family refused when they found out he was registered
as a Muslim. When he turned 21, he tried to restore his
religion, but his application was refused and in 2020 he
left Iraq for Lebanon. He married in a church ceremony
that was not officially registered and, to this day, has
not had children for fear that they will be classified as
Muslims if they are registered in Iraq.
His other sister has a forged identity document certifying
her as a Christian, which she paid for to enable her to
travel and apply for immigration.
Their father says: “I wanted my son to stay close to me,
to help me in my old age after his sisters had got
married. But they took him, and the children he would have
had, away from me. He left six years ago and has never
come back.”
05
Your marriage is invalid and your children must follow your
Islamic faith
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I was unable to speak with Rachel herself (not her real
name) for this investigation. Her husband said she was
still suffering from the psychological effects of the
case, so he allowed her lawyer, Akram al-Najjar, to speak
on her behalf.
Rachel was 15 when her mother announced she had converted
to Islam at the court in Dohuk, following her marriage to
a Muslim man. Rachel remained registered as a Christian,
and in 2010, after turning nineteen, she married Sami
Boutros in church. She had her marriage legally
registered, and had her children registered under her
Christian civil status.
The problem arose when her national identity card was
issued, as the authorities looked back to the date of her
mother’s conversion to Islam and required that Rachel be
registered as a Muslim, which would require her husband to
be registered as Muslim too, as well as their children.
In the lawsuit, Al-Najjar argued that Rachel had renewed
her documents, married and given birth while registered as
a Christian, and had never declared she had converted to
Islam. The couple embarked on a series of legal battles in
Dohuk, Erbil and Baghdad, spending millions of dinars.
They even considered emigrating to Australia.
After about two years, the Dohuk court ruled in Rachel’s
favor. But this was solely due to an administrative error:
she had not been notified of the change in her religious
status when she went to the Civil Registry Office to
register her marriage. So her sisters remain registered as
Muslim. “This is how the law tears a single family in
two,” Al-Najjar says.
06
A quick divorce, a chronic illness and permanent damage to her
eyesight
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Six months after her church wedding, Warda (not her real
name), who was born in 1991, needed to transfer her civil
registration from Tall Kayf in Nineveh and have her
marriage contract certified. Her civil ID, citizenship
certificate and passport all confirmed she was Christian,
according to her brother Sabah. But he says: “Her husband
rang me and said we had a major problem: Warda’s religion
had been changed to Islam in the civil registry.”
Her father had publicly converted to Islam about 28 years
before, when Warda was a child. The family knew about his
conversion, but did not realize that the registration
would also apply to her. Sabah, however, was unaffected,
as he was an adult at the time.
Sabah went from one department to another trying to
correct the registration. He refused to renew her national
identity card, so that he could preserve the original
documents in which she was registered as Christian. Her
husband soon divorced her, fearing he would be forced to
change his religion.
The family sought helo from several churches, but the only
solution they were given was to leave Iraq. Sabah says: “I
lost hope; I didn’t have the money to buy my way out of
this ordeal. I contacted the office of Christian religious
endowments and sent dozens of messages via social media
and websites… even to the page of the President of the
Republic, who presents himself as the protector of the
constitution. I went on television and repeatedly
contacted government departments. But I was left on my
own, no one got back to me.”
07
A family living as Mandaeans but registered as Muslim
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Walid (not his real name) was 15 when his mother converted
to Islam in 2006. Five years later, while visiting the
Civil Status Department to renew his identity card, he
discovered that he and his brothers were officially
registered as Muslims.
He filed a case with the Personal Status Court in
Al-Bayaa, Baghdad, to have his religion registered again
as Sabian-Mandaean. Despite trying for more than a year
and engaging three lawyers, his application was rejected
on the grounds that he was over 18. One of his brothers
was a minor at the time and was asked to make a claim as
soon as he came of age. But when he did so, his
application was also turned down. Walid believes that the
difference in timing did not alter the outcome.
Walid lives within the Sabian-Mandaean community and works
in one of its institutions. The head of the community
assured him that whatever his official registration, this
did not exclude him from his religion. This is also linked
to a specific religious stance held by Sabian Mandaeans;
male circumcision is forbidden and results in expulsion
from the community. Since Walid is uncircumcised, he
remains recognized as a Sabian within his community.
Walid married a Sabian woman and had 4 children. The
marriage was registered in court under Islamic law,
however, and his children were registered as Muslims. So
they receive Islamic education, even though the family are
practicing Mandaean. Walid is also unable to take time off
work for his community’s religious holidays, because he is
officially registered as a Muslim.
Walid is concerned about what will happen when his
daughters want to marry, as their official documents list
them as Muslims, yet they live in a Sabian family. “Who
would marry them in this situation?” he asks. “And who
would agree to change his religion for their sake?" He
considered leaving Iraq, but caring for his elderly mother
and his family responsibilities prevented him from doing
so.
Article 26
The law enshrined in Article 26 of the National Identity Card
Law dates back to the Civil Status Law No. 65 of 1972. Article
20 permitted non-Muslims to change their religion in accordance
with the law, while Article 21 regulated the process of
conversion before either the Personal Status Court or the
Personal Matters Court, depending on their respective
jurisdictions. The third paragraph of the law stipulated that
the religious affiliation of underage children should follow
that of either parent who converts to Islam.
According to the study “Ruling on the Return to Their Previous
Religion under Iraqi Law of a Person Who Became Muslim Following
the Conversion to Islam of One of Their Parents.” by Dr
Abdul-Muneim Abdul-Wahab Muhammad, published in the Journal of
In-Depth Legal Research, Issue No. 25, “there is nothing that
provides for this in any of the laws, regulations or instructions
governing civil status, whether repealed or currently in force.
The established case law of the Court of Cassation, however - from
the enactment of the repealed Civil Status Law No. (65) of 1972
until 1999 - is that a minor who becomes Muslim after one of their
parents converted may revert to their previous religion when they
reach the age of legal majority, providing they are of sound mind.
The court stipulated that, “to accept the application of a minor -
who had become Muslim, following the conversion of one of their
parents - to revert to their previous religion, the minor must be
of sound mind and have reached the age of eighteen, and must
submit their application to the competent court (the Personal
Status Court) within one year of reaching the age of majority.”
This margin of flexibility was reduced in subsequent judicial
rulings, which held that renouncing Islam was impermissible for
those who had become Muslim through their parents. The National
Identity Card Law, enacted on October 27, 2015, contains no right
to choose one’s religion after reaching the age of majority, and
retains the principle of parental affiliation in the new civil
registry system.
During the parliament session to vote on this law, Christian,
Yazidi and Mandaean MPs objected to the second paragraph of
Article 26. Christian MPs submitted a motion, signed by 51 MPs, to
allow minors to retain their religion until the age of 18 and give
them one year to choose their religion after reaching adulthood.
But attempts by MPs representing religious minorities to amend
Article 26 were unsuccessful, with 137 MPs voting to retain the
relevant paragraph. A proposal to repeal it also failed, with 108
MPs voting against, compared with 86 in favor.
After the law was adopted, representatives of religious minorities
stopped attending parliamentary sessions in protest. They also met
with the then president, Fuad Masum, demanding he halt what they
considered a breach of the constitution. On November 17, 2015,
Masum requested that the law be referred back to parliament for
reconsideration of Article 26. The same day MPs voted to take
steps to amend the law and bring it into line with the
constitution and the rights of minorities.
This decision marked a political commitment. In October 2016, the
first proposed amendment was placed on the parliamentary agenda,
but its reading was postponed to allow for consultation with the
Committee on Endowments and Religious Affairs. The first amendment
was issued in 2017, but it left the second paragraph of Article 26
unchanged.
Father Martin Hormuz Dawoud, spokesperson for the Office of
Endowments for Christian, Yazidi and Sabian-Mandaean Religions,
describes Article 26 as “unfair to minorities.” He says that
“forcing minorities and minors to change their religion, because
one parent changes theirs, violates the rights and privacy of both
minors and religious minorities”.
On November 25, 2015, the Human Rights Office of the UN Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the High Commission for
Human Rights in Iraq expressed their concern over the impact of
Article 26 on religious and ethnic minorities. The UN made clear
that the article held a child to be Muslim if one of their parents
converted to Islam, regardless of the child’s guardianship
arrangements or the child’s own wishes, and called for the article
to be deleted or amended to allow the child to choose their
religion when they reached 18.
Both people affected by this law and lawyers whom I spoke to for
this investigation believe that this conflicts with the freedom of
religion and belief guaranteed by the constitution. Article 37(2)
protects individuals from religious coercion; Article 42 ensures
freedom of thought, conscience and belief; and Article 2
guarantees religious rights and freedom of belief and practice.
Lawyer Akram al-Najjar has handled dozens of cases relating to
Article 26 of the National Card Law. He says it has disrupted the
lives of those members of minority groups affected by it and
restricted their religious freedom, by making the religion
recorded in official documents take precedence over the religion
someone was raised in, at home and in their community.
Al-Najjar describes the impact of the article as amounting to
“ethnic cleansing” of minority identities, by stripping minors of
their religion in official records and, when they become adults,
coercing them with regard to marriage, children, education and
official documents.
These restrictions usually become apparent only when a person
comes of age, and applies for an identity card or a marriage
certificate, or appears in court, as minors are unable to access
their family registration themselves.
I questioned Brigadier (Legal) Munadhil al-Saadi, Director of
Media at the General Directorate of Civil Status, Passports
and Residence, about the harm caused by Article 26 of the
National Identity Card Law No. 3 of 2016 to minors from
minority groups. In response, he acknowledged that applying
Article 26 formed part of the obligation of executive
institutions to enforce laws and judicial decisions issued by
the competent courts. He explained that the role of
public-service services was confined to carrying out
administrative procedures within the approved legal framework.
He added: “While we are committed to upholding the rule of
law, we are fully aware of the social and humanitarian
challenges and the psychological impact caused in certain
cases, particularly for minors.”
Mar Abras Youkhana, Bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East,
says that Article 26 has driven some Christians in Iraq to
emigrate, but the Church lacks accurate statistics, because many
of those affected do not speak out, because of fear of shame or
social exclusion.
Iraq joined the Convention on the Rights of the Child on June 15,
1994. Article 14 of the Convention stipulates a child’s right to
freedom of thought, conscience and religion, while respecting the
rights and duties of parents or legal guardians to provide
direction to the child in the exercise of that right in a manner
consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
In 1971, Iraq ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. Articles 18 and 27 guarantee freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, and the right of minorities to practice
their religion and culture.
In its 2025 report, the US Commission on International Religious
Freedom recommended placing Iraq on its “Special Watch List”,
because of the precarious state of religious freedom in 2024, as
well as threats from armed factions, inadequate protection of
minorities, and the continued existence of laws imposing a
religious classification on “people who have changed their
religion” and their underage children.
Population figures for minorities are not part of the official
census, which asks a general question about religion. Estimates of
their numbers are consequently based on international and human
rights reports. These include a 2024 report by the UK Home Office,
which put the number of Christians at fewer than 150,000, compared
to around 1.5 million before 2003. Other estimates put their
number at between 200,000 and 300,000. The number of Yazidis is
estimated to be between 400,000 and 500,000, and that of the
Sabian Mandaeans from 10,000 to 15,000.
“The law is wrong; a minor is not qualified to make this
decision, as it is imposed on them, and it is a violation of
childhood.”
Mar Abras Yohanna, Bishop of Dohuk and Nineveh, says that some
husbands declare themselves Muslim to evade paying maintenance or
to strengthen their position in custody cases, and that delay in
obtaining a church divorce leads some lawyers to suggest changing
religion as a quick fix, without considering the consequences for
the children: “The law is flawed; a minor is not qualified to make
this decision, as it is imposed upon them, and this constitutes a
violation of childhood rights.”
According to the bishop, the church does not have official
statistics on the number of people negatively affected by Article
26. Many are reluctant to seek help for fear of shame or
rejection. Some choose to emigrate, others to conceal the issue
and live with two identities. The bishop asks why there should be
this contradiction between the rights and equality for citizens
guaranteed under the constitution and legislation which he
believes undermines these rights for followers of different
religions and sects.
* Names have been changed at the request of those involved.
This investigation was carried out with the support of ARIJ.
This investigation was published in Arabic on the following
websites:
Details of several other cases here
