SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — A woman burned alive by her
husband, others shot dead by a father or a teenage brother — bloody violence
against women has spiked in northern
Iraq's Kurdish region.
اضافة اعلان
The autonomous area, keen on projecting an image of a
relative haven of stability and tolerance in war-battered Iraq, has seen a
sharp rise in femicide, killings motivated by gender.
"In the past two months, there has been an increase in
femicide compared to the previous year," said Hiwa Karim Jwamir of the
Kurdish General Directorate for Combating Violence Against Women.
In the first two months of 2022, 11 women were killed in
autonomous
Iraqi Kurdistan, most of them shot, said the official based in
Sulaimaniyah.
Forty-five women were killed in 2021, up from 25 the
previous year, said Jwamir.
On a Friday before dawn, a 15-year-old teenager was fatally
wounded by six bullets fired by her father in the village of Soran. The man
told police his daughter "went out with two boys late at night",
according to a domestic violence unit which also records so-called "honor
killings".
Across Iraq, gender-based violence rose 125 percent to over
22,000 cases between 2020 and 2021, says the UN children's agency
UNICEF, which
has also pointed to "a worrisome increase in depression and suicide among
women and girls".
Last December, a 16-year-old girl was disfigured with acid
in Baghdad by an adult who wanted to marry her but had been rejected.
For years, activists have denounced violence against women
and forced marriages in Iraq, which remains a conservative and patriarchal
society.
"Cases of violence against women are on the rise,"
said long-time Kurdistan activist Bahar Munzir, director of local group the
People's Development Organization.
"Most of the women who are killed are victims of a
family member."
Doused in gasoline
A few days before
International Women's Day on March 8, the
body of a 20-year-old woman was found on the side of the road in Erbil, the
capital of Kurdistan.
Maria Sami, the victim, was known on social networks for her
feminist speeches.
The following day, on March 9, Kirkuk police announced the
arrest of the killer, her 18-year-old brother.
While he was still on the run, he spoke by phone to a
Kurdish television channel and tried to justify the killing by charging his
sister had failed to obey the family.
In February, mother-of-two Shinyar Huner Rafiq died in
hospital, five days after being admitted with serious burns.
"Her husband had come home one evening in a state of
intoxication," Shinyar's father, Huner Rafiq, told AFP.
"He doused her body in gasoline and set it on
fire."
After the father reported the killing, police arrested the
husband.
"Before dying, Shinyar told us the facts," said
the bereaved father. "We recorded it, and we submitted the video to the
investigators."
Kurdistan's Prime Minister
Masrour Barzani denounced the
"horrific case", saying he was "deeply troubled" by the
spate of violent attacks against women.
The government must impose "the heaviest possible
penalty on perpetrators", he said in a statement.
"There is no honor in honor killings.
"I'm determined to protect every woman, girl and child
from abuse ... This scourge must end."
Climate of impunity
In early February, Dohuk police said they had found the
corpse of Doski Azad, a 23-year-old transgender woman who had been ostracized
by family members.
An arrest warrant was issued to find the suspected murderer:
the victim's brother, who had in recent years been living in Europe.
He had called his family to inform them of his crime and of
where the body was, according to police.
The murder was condemned by the
UN mission in Iraq, and the
consulates of Western countries in Erbil.
The news provoked a torrent of hatred online — against the
victim, even though some voices defended minorities' rights.
In June 2011, Kurdistan passed a law criminalizing domestic
violence and female genital mutilation.
The law, which threatens life in prison for
"honor" crimes, was hailed by NGOs as a major step forward.
But the law's enforcement is hampered by a climate of
impunity and a common fear of speaking out.
"When a woman is killed, the procedures of the security
services are not the same as when it's a man, the trial is not the same,"
said Munzir, the activist.
"Some cases don't even make it to court. They are
subject to tribal resolution between the man's family and that of his wife, the
victim."
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