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POL-83

This is a proposal for discussion, not an enacted law.

Ali Zuweid's Political Programme

Proposed draft law · Health, Social Protection and the Family

Anti-Trafficking, Victim Protection and Migrant Workers Law

Repeal and replacement of Law No. (28) of 2012 with a modern framework integrating criminalisation and prosecution with early victim identification, non-punishment, compensation, fair recruitment and protection of migrant workers against forced labour, document retention, debt bondage and exploitation.

Prepared by:

Document number
POL-83
Version
1.0
Publication date
7 October 2026
Scope
Republic of Iraq

Executive summary

Iraq has had an anti-trafficking legal foundation since Law No. (28) of 2012, which established a central committee chaired by the Interior Minister, criminalised trafficking and provided victim assistance. Victim care-home regulations No. (7) of 2017 followed. Through Law No. (4) of 2024, Iraq ratified the Arab Protocol to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in Persons, alongside accession on 9 February 2009 to the UN protocol supplementing the transnational organised crime convention.

The existing framework is nevertheless very brief relative to changes in crime, labour markets and migration. On 25 July 2026, the Council of Representatives completed the first reading of a proposed First Amendment to the 2012 law, confirming an active reform process. In its February 2026 concluding observations on Iraq, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommended removing coercive-means requirements for child trafficking, expanding victim identification beyond the judiciary alone, introducing non-punishment and improving data and protection.

Labour Law No. (37) of 2015 regulates foreign employment and prohibits forced labour, while Labour Ministry Decision No. (74/1) of 2025 strengthened foreign domestic workers' protection against recruitment fees and agency abuse. Practical risks still include deceptive recruitment, passport retention, unpaid wages, deportation threats and irregular employer transfers. IOM's Iraq plan for 2026 estimates around 370 thousand migrant workers, while its border-monitoring data identify deceptive recruitment among the leading exploitation indicators observed among work-related travellers.

POL-83 therefore proposes repeal and replacement, not a parallel law: preserving and developing institutions, making protection available upon reasonable suspicion, preventing punishment for violations directly resulting from trafficking, establishing fair recruitment rules, prohibiting document retention and worker-paid recruitment fees, enabling employer changes during exploitation, and strengthening financial and digital investigations, compensation and international cooperation while preserving judicial powers and oversight of rights-restricting measures.

Legislative gap

Principal gaps addressed
AreaCurrent positionProposed response
Child traffickingThe current general definition may create difficulties proving means.A distinct rule: an act for exploitation suffices without coercion or deception.
Victim identificationPast practice strongly linked protection access to judicial proceedings.Initial administrative identification and presumed-victim status, while courts retain offence classification.
Non-punishmentNo explicit general rule against punishing victims for acts directly resulting from trafficking.Exemption for residence, employment, begging, prostitution and other violations within the causal connection.
Migrant workersFragmented labour and recruitment rules.Prohibit recruitment fees, passport retention and residence-related threats; ensure understandable contracts and employer-change routes during exploitation.
Domestic workPrivate workplaces complicate inspection and protection.Explicit preventive rights, interviews outside homes and entry with consent or judicial permission.
CompensationProtection exists, but restitution, wage and compensation routes need clarity.Prioritise wage and property restitution, precautionary measures and victim rights in confiscation.
DataMultiple bodies impede a consistent national picture.A unified, preferably non-identifying statistical system and public annual report.
2026 parliamentary processA First Amendment proposal has reached first reading.A comprehensive text serving as a complete alternative or basis for redrafting the ongoing amendment.

Proposed legislative policy

The proposal follows five connected strands: clear criminalisation distinguishing trafficking from ordinary labour or residence violations; immediate protection independent of investigative cooperation; labour-market prevention through fair recruitment and bans on fees and document retention; financial and digital pursuit of perpetrators, companies and complicit officials; and data, evaluation and financing measuring outcomes rather than arrests alone.

Repeal and replacement were chosen because the existing fourteen-article law cannot accommodate extensive new institutions, rights, procedures, penalties and transition provisions through isolated amendments. Existing committees, units and care homes are nevertheless retained as the new structure's foundation, reducing transition costs and preventing institutional gaps.

Draft law text

Draft Anti-Trafficking, Victim Protection and Migrant Workers Law

Under the Constitution, to prevent trafficking and forced labour, protect victims and their rights, and strengthen fair recruitment and national and international cooperation, the following Law is proposed:

Reasons for enactment

To develop the national anti-trafficking system consistently with the Constitution and Iraq's international and regional obligations; address evolving exploitation, forced labour, digital recruitment and deceptive recruitment; identify victims early and prevent punishment for directly resulting acts; provide protection, care, compensation and reintegration; strengthen migrant worker rights and prevent document retention, recruitment charges and residence-based coercion; and develop financial and digital investigations and oversight of agencies and companies, this Law is enacted.

Explanatory memorandum

1. Why are heavier penalties alone insufficient?

Trafficking often rests on an exploitative economy preceding the visible crime: an intermediary imposing debt, a false contract, a confiscated passport, deportation threats or a network moving between begging, sexual exploitation and forced labour. Stronger penalties matter but cannot interrupt this chain while victims fear arrest, fines or loss of residence. The proposal therefore joins deterrence with clear prevention and protection.

2. Administrative identification does not diminish the judiciary

Administrative identification lets protection bodies, inspectors or border officials recognise reasonable grounds to suspend deportation and refer people to services. Whether a crime occurred, who committed it and conviction remain judicial matters. This protects victims early without turning administrators into judges.

3. Non-punishment

Trafficking cases may appear as residence offences, begging, prostitution, unlicensed work or incorrect documents. Where directly caused by trafficking, punishing victims benefits traffickers by discouraging reports and increasing control. The proposal uses a specific causal rule rather than general immunity for serious crimes.

4. Migrant protection without parallel labour law

Wages, hours, leave and contracts remain principally governed by labour law. This proposal targets vulnerabilities leading to trafficking or forced labour: recruitment fees, debts, passport retention, secret transfers, deportation threats and complaint retaliation. It extends to all migrant workers some safeguards strengthened by the Labour Ministry in 2025 for foreign female domestic-worker recruitment.

5. Children, women and persons with disabilities

The proposal addresses particular vulnerabilities. Children need not prove coercion, and unaccompanied children shall not return before best-interests assessment. Restigmatisation of sexual exploitation victims is prohibited, and reasonable accommodation is required in interviews, courts and services.

Transitional provisions and implementation requirements

Commencement programme
PeriodAction
From publicationApply urgent protection and non-punishment; retain existing institutions and shelters.
0–3 monthsDesignate the secretariat and contacts and adopt an interim multi-agency identification and referral form.
Within 6 monthsIssue identification, fair recruitment, multilingual hotline, data protection, financial investigation and training instructions.
Within 12 monthsIssue new shelter regulations, develop the electronic recruitment and employment register and accredit non-governmental providers.
12–18 monthsConnect governorates to national data and publish the first unified annual report.
Within one yearSubmit labour, residence and other legislative alignment amendments as needed.

Financial and implementation impact

An entirely new government apparatus is unnecessary. Central and subsidiary committees, security units, care homes, inspectors and residence systems already exist. Costs therefore centre on developing the Directorate and secretariat, expanding shelter and care, interpretation and multilingual channels, connecting databases, training and increasing inspections of agencies and high-risk sectors.

At drafting, public sources lack unified operational data for precise costs across governorates, shelters, cases and staff. The proposal avoids false precision and requires detailed implementation costs in budgets and annual plans, separating protection and service expenditure from enforcement.

A unified platform and fair recruitment may reduce later enforcement costs by limiting fictitious intermediaries and tracing actual employers. This is a potential benefit, not guaranteed savings, and must be measured in annual reports.

Safeguards and oversight

  • Judicial oversight of technical surveillance, freezing, seizure and liberty restrictions.
  • Separate administrative protection identification from criminal proof in court.
  • Protection independent of testimony or conviction.
  • No detention inside shelters.
  • No use of protection data to pursue trafficking-related residence violations.
  • Defence rights when using recorded interviews and witness protection.
  • Not every labour dispute is trafficking; coercion or deception and exploitation elements must exist.
  • Audit recruitment agencies and publish final administrative sanctions under transparency rules.
  • Annual non-identifying national reports measuring protection and compensation, not arrests alone.
  • No security rewards linked to confiscation values or case counts.

International references

On 9 February 2009, Iraq acceded to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The proposal's definition follows its act–means–purpose structure, exempting children from proof of means.

Iraq also ratified the Arab Protocol to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, through Law No. (4) of 2024. ILO Forced Labour Convention No. (29) and Abolition of Forced Labour Convention No. (105) are in force for Iraq and underpin protection from forced labour and debt bondage.

CEDAW's February 2026 recommendations are particularly relevant because they directly address national gaps: child trafficking, judicial identification limits, non-punishment, data and protection. The proposal converts them into enforceable Iraqi rules while preserving judicial criminalisation and conviction powers.

Sources and references

  1. Iraqi Council of Representatives — Constitution of the Republic of Iraq, 2005Article (37/Third) prohibits forced labour, slavery, the slave trade, trafficking in women and children and sex trafficking.
  2. Ministry of Justice — Anti-Human Trafficking Law No. (28) of 2012 with its regulation and regulatory amendmentsApplicable text published in Iraqi Official Gazette issue 4236 on 23 April 2012, the current enforcement and protection basis.
  3. Iraqi Council of Representatives — First reading of the proposed First Amendment to the Anti-Human Trafficking Law, 25 July 2026Documents the ongoing First Amendment process in the current term.
  4. Supreme Judicial Council — Observations on the draft Anti-Human Trafficking Law amendmentNational reference discussing Committee changes, Directorate creation, stronger penalties and amendment wording.
  5. Ministry of Justice — Law No. (4) of 2024 ratifying the Arab Protocol to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in PersonsDocuments ratification-law publication in Iraqi Official Gazette issue 4766 in March 2024.
  6. United Nations Treaty Collection — Trafficking in Persons Protocol, Iraq accessionDocuments Iraq's 9 February 2009 accession to the trafficking protocol supplementing the organised crime convention.
  7. ILO NATLEX — Iraq Labour Law No. 37 of 2015Applicable labour law, including foreign employment and forced-labour prohibitions.
  8. ILO — Code of Conduct for Fair Recruitment, Republic of IraqNational tripartite reference on fair recruitment, worker rights and employment and recruitment agency regulation.
  9. ILO CEACR — Iraq: regulation of recruitment agencies and foreign female domestic workers, Decision 74/1 of 2025Documents Decision 74/1 of 1 July 2025, stronger agency oversight and prohibition of recruitment fees charged to female workers.
  10. IOM — Iraq Crisis Response Plan 2026Estimates around 370 thousand migrant workers in Iraq and notes unethical recruitment, poor conditions and limited protection.
  11. IOM DTM Iraq — Spotlight at the Border: Data Insights into Trafficking in Persons in IraqBorder-monitoring exploitation indicators, especially deceptive recruitment, unpaid wages and forced labour; not a national prevalence estimate.
  12. CEDAW — Concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of Iraq, 16 February 2026Recent Iraq recommendations on child trafficking definitions, identification beyond courts, non-punishment, data and protection of women and girls.
  13. UNODC — Model Law against Trafficking in PersonsLegislative reference for implementing the Palermo Protocol and designing criminalisation, protection and cooperation provisions.
  14. OHCHR — Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human TraffickingHuman rights reference for victim-centred approaches, non-punishment, protection and reparation.
  15. ILO NORMLEX — Ratifications for IraqDocuments the application of Forced Labour Convention No. 29, Abolition of Forced Labour Convention No. 105 and other ratified labour conventions.

Ali Zuweid's Political Programme — A proposed draft law within Health, Social Protection and the Family. It is not enacted legislation and requires constitutional adoption procedures and Official Gazette publication.

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