With Iraq considering lowering the marriage age for girls to nine, Newsweek looks at marriage and consent laws around the world.

One country is attempting to allow men to marry young girls. Many see this as a way to satisfy sick urges and hold women down.

Iraq is poised to pass a new law that would lower the legal age of consent from 18 to nine, allowing men to marry young girls, according to a new report. The Shia conservative groups that dominate Iraq’s parliament have proposed an amendment to the country’s “personal status law” that could see a Taliban-style rollback of all women’s rights.

The new law would allow men to marry children as young as nine years old and has been branded a "catastrophe for women" by activists who are fighting to stop it.

The new law would repeal one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the Middle East, and has sparked a massive campaign from Iraqi women, with the support of some MPs

Iraq is poised to slash the legal age of consent from 18 to to nine, allowing men to marry young children. The proposed legal change also deprives women of rights to divorce, child custody and inheritance.

The law is going to a second vote by the country's government, but it has opposition from youth activist groups and from 215 women parliamentary members.