On January 21, 2025, Iraq's parliament passed amendments to the country's personal status law, giving Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage. The amendments would change the previously set minimum age of marriage, which was 18 in most cases, and let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law.
Possibly in this context, a video has gone viral on social media, appearing to show a minor girl 'kissing' an adult man. It is being widely shared with the claim that the video shows the marriage of a 9-year-old girl that was permitted in Iraq.
The tweet below, which makes the same claim, garnered 1.2 million views. (Archive)
User @ImtiazMadmood tweeted the video and made the same claim, citing the aforementioned tweet. (Archive)
Gad Saad, a professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, quote-tweeted Mahmood's post and criticized cultural relativism — the idea of accepting all cultures as equal — arguing that it can lead individuals or societies to overextend their empathy in ways that are, in his words, "suicidal" or self-destructive. (Archive)
Several other users from India and other countries also tweeted the viral video with the same claim. "Those who support Hijabs for young girls in India will one day defend this as well", wrote one such user. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
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The video is also viral on Facebook with the same claim.
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Fact Check
Upon closer inspection of the viral video, we spotted the Instagram handle '@diana_romano_butik777' mentioned on it.
Looking it up on Instagram led us to the profile of a Russian woman. On March 1, she had shared the viral video of the child and the man.
We browsed through her profile and discovered more videos from the event. However, the imagery clearly revealed that the man was marrying an adult woman, not the child, as claimed by the social media posts. Furthermore, the ceremony appeared to be a Christian wedding, with the bride wearing a white wedding dress.
We also compared two screengrabs — one from the viral video and one from the wedding — to confirm for the reader that the man is, in fact, the same person.
The child can also be seen posing with the bride in the images uploaded on Instagram.
Alt News reached out to the woman who uploaded the images, who identified herself as Diana, hailing from Essentuki, in Stavropol Krai, Russia. She explained, "I am the biological aunt of Yulia. The wedding was of my brother Alexei to Raya. My niece is 5-year-old, and it seems they took this from my page and are spreading lies about it, with grown men involved... We are Christians." She further explained that the girl was her elder brother's daughter, and the groom, Alexei, was her younger brother.
Denying the claims circulating on social media, Diana stated, "We have no tradition of giving children in marriage, especially at 9, as claimed in the video. The person who took the video must have checked my page and seen that this child is not the bride! Why would they do this? Especially men? Can we call them men, those who post videos with false information?" She also mentioned that she would file a police report regarding the matter.
Additionally Diana posted the video of Alexei and his niece on her Instagram page after the video went viral, and wrote 'uncle and niece' on the video as a clarification. In the caption, she said, "Those who post without permission and write nasty things, may you be cursed".
The text "media_lux_live" was also displayed on the viral video.
Upon searching for the Instagram page, we found that it belongs to a profile that specializes in shooting videos and reels at weddings and other events. On February 26, the page uploaded a video of the bride and groom with the caption 'Alexei♥️Raya' written in Russian. This corroborates Diana's statement. We also found a video on the Instagram page that shows the bride and groom seemingly in a church.
They also uploaded a separate video of the child, sitting alone and smiling at the camera. The text on the video said, "Princess Julia" in Russian.
Thus, amid Iraq's parliament passing amendments to its personal status law, several influential X users began circulating a video showing an affectionate moment between a young girl and her uncle from Russia, falsely claiming it depicted the marriage of a 9-year-old to a grown man in Iraq.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.