C-Fam Submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Iraq, 48th Session of the UPR, Human Rights Council – January 2025

By C-Fam Staff | July 17, 2024

January 2025, Geneva, Switzerland

IRAQ

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) is a nongovernmental organization that was founded in 1997 and has held Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2014. We are headquartered in New York and Washington, D.C., and are a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization that is dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.

 

INTRODUCTION

  1. In 2020, the ministers and high representatives of 34 countries met to launch the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), in which they committed to promoting four objectives: improve women’s health, protect human life, strengthen the family as the basic unit of society, and defend the sovereignty of nations concerning their laws and policies to protect life.[1] Iraq was one of the original signatories of the GCD. This report focuses on Iraq’s fulfillment of its commitments to human rights in the context of the four pillars of the GCD.

THE GENEVA CONSENSUS DECLARATION

  1. The language of the GCD is drawn exclusively from documents agreed by consensus, including core UN human rights treaties, the founding documents of the UN such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and major meeting outcomes such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population Development.

PROTECTING WOMEN’S HEALTH

  1. At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), nations pledged “to enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.”[2] This commitment is echoed in the GCD, alongside reaffirmations of the importance of women’s equal rights and their contributions to society, both in terms of education, employment, and civic engagement and through the family. The unique and essential role of women as mothers was recognized in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women.[3] Both of these landmark conferences, as well as the subsequent Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, include commitments to reduce maternal and child mortality, and while significant progress has been made around the world, critical gaps remain, especially for those in the poorest, most remote, and resource-deprived areas.
  2. According to estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group, and UNDESA/Population Division, Iraq has seen a reduction in its maternal mortality ratio from 117 to 76 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2000 and 2020.[4] The rate is still the highest among neighboring countries. Two major factors influencing maternal mortality and morbidity are nutrition and access to quality maternal health care.
  3. According to the Global Nutrition Report, while Iraq has seen improvements in reducing anemia in women of reproductive age, 28 percent of women aged 15-49 are still affected by the condition,[5] which is a major risk factor for maternal hemorrhage. Nutritional outcomes are also linked to the poverty rate. 22.5 percent of Iraqis live below the national poverty line and an additional 30 percent are at risk of falling below the poverty line and becoming food insecure.[6] Maternal and child health will require investment in bringing families out of poverty. Ensuring women and girls are educated and literate can contribute to that goal as poverty and literacy are correlated.[7]
  4. In Iraq, across all education levels, “girls have a higher out-of-school rate than boys. This is particularly true for children who should be attending upper secondary education, where 46 percent of girls are out of school versus 35 percent of boys.”[8] One of the barriers limiting girls’ educational attainment is the lack of access to menstrual hygiene products.[9]
  5. Improvements in quality healthcare services, including skilled attendance at childbirth and accessible essential obstetric care, are also essential for a mother’s safe delivery. “With over four decades of war, conflicts, sanctions, and violence, Iraqis have been left with a deteriorating healthcare system and continuing environmental hazards, resulting in poor health outcomes […] However, the inadequate distribution of health facilities, underfunding, physician shortages, and limited availability of medications has resulted in limited access to healthcare with significant geographical health disparities; Iraq has 9.7 doctors and 23.8 nurses and midwives per 10,000 individuals, both of which are below the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) […] Additionally, the Ministry of Health and Environment […] operates on 1/12th of its regular budget.”[10]
  6. While Article 417 of the Iraqi Penal Code outlaws abortion,[11] the First Amendment to Instructions to Health Committees recommends that abortion is allowed when the life of the mother is in danger and she receives authorization from a medical professional.[12]
  7. Iraq has seen improvements in maternal health in recent decades but remains off track for meeting its target under the Sustainable Development Goals.[13] Nevertheless, these gains have been made without liberalizing the country’s abortion law. In keeping with Iraq’s affirmation of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, continuing to strengthen health systems, ensure adequate nutrition for pregnant women and mothers, improving hygiene including menstrual hygiene for women and girls, and increasing girls’ access to secure and high-quality education and literacy will continue to reduce preventable maternal mortality, while also continuing to use its laws to protect the lives of the unborn.

PROTECTING HUMAN LIFE

  1. Abortion is a highly controversial issue in Iraq. When the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women asked Iraq what steps the government took to decriminalize abortion, the Iraqi government responded that “religious precepts and social norms had to be considered; the State could hardly take unilateral decisions that went against social practices.”[14] Such social and cultural opposition to abortion is in line with the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) flagging the importance of mitigating the harmful effects of abortion on women while asserting that “any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process.”[15]
  2. Iraq has not received recommendations to decriminalize abortion in its previous Universal Periodic Reviews. As a signatory to the Geneva Consensus Declaration, Iraq has expressed its position that abortion is not an international human right. It is therefore consistent with this position that Iraq and other members of the Geneva Consensus Declaration maintain legislation that protects unborn life and reject any pressure to legalize abortion as such recommendations are not only inconsistent with national laws and priorities but also outside the scope of internationally agreed human rights standards and obligations.

 

SUPPORT FOR THE FAMILY

  1. The GCD reaffirms the obligations of States regarding the family enshrined in international law, including the definition of the family as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” and the recognition that it is “entitled to protection by society and the State.” Signatories to the GCD further committed to “support the role of the family as foundational to society and as a source of health, support, and care.”[16]
  2. In Iraq, there is no recognition of same-sex relationships, and homosexual behavior between both men and women is criminalized. In a previous Universal Periodic Review, Iraq received recommendations to create novel categories of nondiscrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and to create an awareness campaign “aimed at changing stereotypes and harmful and violent attitudes about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons.”[17] All of these have been marked as “noted” rather than “supported.”[18] This position of Iraq reflects the fact that same-sex marriage is not a subject on which global consensus exists; nor is it included as a right in any binding international legal instrument to which Iraq is a party. As summarized in the Family Articles, a project of the coalition Civil Society for the Family, the right to create a family is based on the union of a man and a woman, and “Relations between individuals of the same sex and other social and legal arrangements that are neither equivalent nor analogous to the family are not entitled to the protections singularly reserved for the family in international law and policy.”[19]
  3. All human beings possess the same fundamental human rights by their inherent dignity and worth, including the right to equal protection of the law without any discrimination.[20] Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc., are protected from violence and discrimination to the same extent as any individual under the equal protection principle in human rights law. However, they are not entitled to special protections based on their sexual preferences and subjective gender identity as such.

NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

  1. As stated in the GCD, concerning the legal status of abortion and the protection of the unborn, it is a matter of longstanding consensus that “each nation has the sovereign right to implement programs and activities consistent with their laws and policies.” However, opposition to this sovereign right of countries has become increasingly commonplace in those parts of the United Nations system governed more by expert opinion or bureaucratic oversight than by the standard of negotiated consensus. There is no global mandate to pressure countries to liberalize their abortion laws or expand the categories for non-discrimination as a matter of international human rights law concerning, for example, sexual orientation or gender identity, and to the extent that mandate-holders engage in such behavior, they do so ultra vires.
  2. Nevertheless, the frequency of such pressure has only increased toward countries whose laws restrict abortion to protect the unborn, or which maintain a traditional view of marriage and the family, in line with the human rights obligations expressed in the binding treaties they have ratified. Such nonbinding opinions have been elevated in many parts of the UN, although they have never been accepted nor adopted by consensus in the General Assembly.
  3. The GCD, by anchoring its every assertion in a document adopted by consensus, reaffirms the centrality of the family, the rights of women and children and the fact that these rights are not upheld by abortion, and the importance of national sovereignty, especially in those places where global consensus does not exist.
  4. Unlike other UN human rights mechanisms, the UPR provides a space for sovereign nations to speak to each other and provide encouragement to fulfill their human rights obligations. To the extent that this venue has been used to exert further pressure on countries to liberalize their abortion laws or redefine the family as a matter of national law and policy, global consensus on these matters must be upheld and promoted in the UPR as well, particularly by those countries that have already taken a stand in this regard by signing the GCD.

CONCLUDING RECOMMENDATIONS

  1. We encourage Iraq to continue protecting the natural family and marriage, formed by a husband and a wife, as the fundamental unit of society.
  2. Iraq should continue to improve maternal and child health outcomes, including by ensuring adequate nutrition for pregnant women and affordable maternal health care, as well as improving access to hygiene, sanitation, and adequate nutrition, particularly for pregnant women and mothers, with special attention to those in rural and remote areas and for those in low-resource settings. Following Iraq’s commitments in the Geneva Consensus Declaration, this does not require the inclusion of abortion.
  3. Iraq should continue to ensure that women and girls have access to secure and high-quality education, including secondary education, and to improve women’s literacy.
  4. Iraq should continue to assert the fact that abortion is not a human right in the context of multilateral negotiations, as well as in the Universal Periodic Review, following the Geneva Consensus Declaration, and call on its fellow signatories to do likewise.

 

 

[1] Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family, 2020. Available at https://undocs.org/en/A/75/626

[2] United Nations International Conference on Population and Development. (1994). “Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population Development,” Cairo.

[3] United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. (1995). “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action” (Annex II, Paragraph 29). Beijing.

[4] WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, & World Bank. (2023). Trends in maternal mortality: 2000 to 2020. World Bank. Available at https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/366225/9789240068759-eng.pdf

[5] Global Nutrition Report. Country Nutrition Profiles: Iraq. Available at https://globalnutritionreport.org/resources/nutrition-profiles/asia/western-asia/iraq/

[6] World Food Programme. (2018). Comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis (CFSVA) – Iraq. Available at https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000102716/download/

[7] What you need to know about literacy. UNESCO.org. (n.d.). Available at https://www.unesco.org/en/literacy/needknow

[8] Iraq Education Fact Sheets | 2020 Analyses for learning and equity using MICS data. Available at https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2020-IRAQ-Education-Factsheets_UNICEF_final.pdf

[9] United Nations Volunteers. “Breaking barriers to girls’ education.” February 1, 2023. Available at https://www.unv.org/news/breaking-barriers-girls-education

[10] Al Janabi, T. (2023). Barriers to the utilization of primary health centers (PHCs) in Iraq. Epidemiologia (Basel), 4(2), 121-133.Available at https://doi.org/10.3390/epidemiologia4020013

[12] World Health Organization. Global Abortion Policies Database. Country Profile: Iraq. July 13, 2022. Available at https://abortion-policies.srhr.org/country/iraq/

[13] Sustainable Development Report 2021. Dashboards.sdgindex.org. Available at https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/profiles/iraq

[14] In dialogue with Iraq, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women stresses the importance of female political participation. (n.d.). Ohchr.org. Available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/10/dialogue-iraq-committee-elimination-discrimination-against-women-stresses

[15] United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, ibid.

[16] Geneva Consensus Declaration, ibid.

[17] Human Rights Council. Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review – Iraq. December 2019.  Available at https://undocs.org/A/HRC/43/14

[18] United Nations: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Universal Periodic Review documentation: Iraq. https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/iq-index

[19] Civil Society for the Family. The Family Articles. Available at https://civilsocietyforthefamily.org/

[20] United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. Available at https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

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