“On top of everything, I’m marrying the daughter of a mute man.”
This was how 21-year old Baraa Imad started her conversation with Jummar as she began speaking about the hardships faced by Iraq’s deaf community. The sentence came from her former fiancé — words that ultimately led to the dissolution of their engagement.
Baraa is the eldest daughter of Imad Mohammad, a blacksmith born in Baghdad in the 1970s. Imad is deaf, and is the father of three daughters and one son, who is also deaf.
Baraa says she is grateful that her father’s disability is hearing-related. Otherwise, she believes, the family would have been subjected to even harsher forms of abuse and vulgar language.
She recalls an incident four years ago, when she went to court with her father and fiancé to complete the marriage contract. The process required her father’s presence. The judge, however, demanded that a “guardian” be appointed for her father — despite the fact that he was legally her guardian — and requested medical reports to prove that he was mentally competent before allowing him to marry off his daughter.
The repeated court visits and procedures caused tension. Baraa overheard her fiancé speaking to his mother: “On top of everything, I’m marrying the daughter of a mute man — I’d be better off calling off the engagement.” His mother replied: “Then I’ll marry you off to the daughter of a deaf man instead.”
“That exchange was enough to take my mind back to my childhood,” Baraa says. “It brought back memories of the bullying I endured at school. That moment became the main reason I decided to study law.”
Health institutions marginalise the silent community
Um Adam (25 years old), who is deaf, married, and now a mother, recounts — in sign language — an experience she had earlier this year at Yarmouk Teaching Hospital while pregnant with her first child. She had gone to the hospital alone after experiencing severe pain.
At the hospital, she found no sign language interpreter — not even someone she could communicate with. After several failed attempts to explain to the doctor that she had a heart condition that prevented her from taking certain medications, she was given intravenous treatment without her condition being properly understood. She was also unable to communicate in writing, as she had received no formal education.
Later that same day, she returned with her husband to her regular doctor. Together, they were able to prevent a medical error that could have jeopardised her pregnancy.
Um Adam’s story is not an isolated case. It reflects a broader reality across both public and private hospitals. Marginalisation goes beyond the absence of sign language interpreters. Health authorities also operate under the assumption that hearing aids provided to deaf individuals are valid for five years and cannot be replaced or repaired before that period ends — even if they are damaged or require maintenance. According to Imad Mohammad, this policy destroys any hope deaf individuals have of regaining hearing.
Hospitals are not the only institutions lacking sign language interpreters. Courts and notary offices face the same issue — as confirmed by Mustafa Miran, a sign language interpreter and broadcaster with the Iraqi Media Network.
Miran told Jummar that he proposed, during a meeting with Faiq Zaidan, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, assigning a sign language interpreter to every court, or training staff in basic sign language. Zaidan responded that this was not possible. However, according to Miran, the Council is preparing a facilitation letter for interpreters to ease their access to courts and notary offices.
Zikra Abdul Karim, head of the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Special Needs at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, told Jummar that Iraqi courts may appoint certified sign language interpreters in cases where one of the parties is deaf.
The right to education
From an early age, school walls proclaim: “Knowledge is light, ignorance is darkness.” For deaf students, however, that light remains distant, dimmed by limited access to specialised education.
Deaf students are often not admitted to mainstream schools due to the difficulty of allocating isolated classrooms for them. There is also a shortage of sign language teachers. Those teaching at institutes for the deaf must be graduates of colleges of education, fluent in sign language, certified through specialised training courses, knowledgeable in sign language dictionaries, and must pass an assessment by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Iraq has no university department dedicated to teaching sign language. According to administrators at the Al-Amal Institute for the Deaf in Al-Suwaira, Wasit province, there are only 25 government institutes for deaf education nationwide.
A university degree remains out of reach for most deaf Iraqis. While no law explicitly prevents them from pursuing higher education, the obstacle lies in completing secondary school and passing national exams, as education for deaf students is often limited to the primary level.
The latest available data from the Central Statistical Organization (2020) records 487 beneficiaries with speech and hearing difficulties in special-needs institutions — 133 women and 354 men.
According to Samer Al-Ani, head of the Guidance Committee at the Anwar Al-Fallujah Association for the Care of the Deaf, limited funding has led to a severe shortage of sign language teachers, covering only 20% of the community’s needs, with most concentrated in central and southern provinces.
The repeated transfer of deaf institutes’ authority — from the Ministry of Labour to provincial councils and back again — has negatively affected services. Zikra Abdul Karim told Jummar that the institutes are not back under the remit of the Ministry, though this is expected early next year.
Entertainment options for the deaf community are also limited. Only the main news bulletin on Iraqi Media Network is translated into sign language; other programmes are not.
Mustafa Miran notes that many interpreters now rely on social media to translate programmes and share world events with the deaf community — work done on a voluntary basis.
Disability does not mean despair
Society often views people with disabilities as unproductive and inactive. Mustafa Miran rejects this notion, especially regarding the deaf community. Marwa Ahmed (43) also shows us otherwise.
Marwa, a wife and mother of two children (without a hearing disability), lives in Baghdad. She turned her disability into a starting point rather than a limitation, supported consistently by her mother.
She enrolled at Al-Izdihar Institute for the Deaf in Adhamiya, Baghdad, where she learned sign language, reading, and writing, despite limited resources and the institute’s reliance on donations from teachers and families of students.
In 2015, Marwa began working with civil society organisations — a turning point that furthered her confidence in herself. She started traveling independently to work events.
She recounts missing a flight at Baghdad International Airport on her way to Geneva after the departure time changed with no visual alerts or interpreters present. Unable to communicate with airport staff, she resorted to video-calling a sign language interpreter to mediate.
“I’ve never experienced this in any other country’s airport,” Marwa says. “There are dedicated pathways for people with disabilities, and technology is used to make life easier — unlike what we face here.”
Beyond statistics and the law
According to the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there are no precise statistics on the number of deaf people in Iraq. The Central Statistical Organization, however, estimates the figure at more than 272,000.
There are also no official figures on sign language teachers and interpreters. Interpreters themselves estimate their number does not exceed 100 nationwide.
Despite Iraq having passed legislation protecting disability rights, implementation remains weak. Law No. 11 of 2024, amending Law No. 38 of 2013, guarantees equal rights in education, employment, healthcare, and the provision of sign language interpreters.
Iraq is also a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Law No. 16 of 2012).
In practice, legal guarantees often fail to translate into real protection. “There is a difference between what is written on paper and what exists on the ground,” said Bushra Al-Obaidi, a legal expert.
She adds that successive governments have failed to prioritise human rights — particularly disability rights — unlike other countries that provide dedicated infrastructure and technological solutions.
Al-Obaidi also notes that that Iraq’s Penal Code No. 111 of 1969 sets out five grounds exempting individuals from criminal responsibility, including mental impairment and mental disorders. Under current legal interpretations, deaf individuals who have not received formal education are often classified within the category of individuals with a “mental disorder.” As a result, they are required to provide proof that their disability has not affected their cognitive capacity, and must undergo medical examinations to certify their mental competence in routine official or legal procedures.
On the question of political representation, Al-Obaidi says that people with disabilities could advocate for the allocation of a quota in parliament and provincial councils, enabling them to participate more directly in decision-making.
