Death under the pretext of honor; femicides increase in Kurdistan Region by 400 percent

Peregraf– Ghamgin Mohammed

Sarwin Khurshid asked the police for protection twice before she was killed. The law, government, and her family failed to help her.

At 9 a.m. on February 9, the 26-year-old was shot ten times by a gunman wielding a Kalashnikov in broad daylight while she was on her way to court in Koya to petition for custody of her only daughter.

Police say that her ex-husband is the prime suspect. He remains at large.

Sarwin is one of at least ten women murdered in the Kurdistan Region so far in 2022. Nor is she the latest to die.

At the end of February in Sulaimaniyah, 21-year-old Shanyar Hunar’s husband dowsed her in oil and set her on fire, according to her family and the local police. She died after several days in the hospital, leaving behind two children. Her husband has been arrested.

On Monday, Eman Sami Maghdid, a 20-year-old tech activist, who was popularly known on social media as Mari, was gunned down in Erbil just ahead of International Women’s Day, with her brother and uncle as prime suspects.

The death toll this year represents a 400 percent increase over the same period in 2021, according to statistics from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) General Directorate of Combating Violence against Women and Families (GDCVAW).

Sarwin’s story is tragically common in the Kurdistan Region. During her marriage, her husband frequently beat her. After she managed to divorce him two years ago, her daughter was taken away from her and her family declined to support her custody claims, according to several of her friends who spoke to Peregraf.

Under threat from her family after the divorce, she lived in a women’s shelter for a period before moving to Erbil.

But she never stopped trying to get her daughter back. This brought her to Koya on that fateful morning. Now her daughter will grow up without her mother.

A month before she was murdered, Sarwin filed a complaint at Erbil's Ankawa police station against two people, one of whom was her uncle, alleging that they had attacked her house.

They "would not give up and her life was in danger," one of Sarwin’s friends told Peregraf about the complaint. The two men she filed the complaint against were arrested following her murder but were released because neither was the shooter.

According to official statistics, 24 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2021. Sixty-two other women committed suicide and there were 86 burnings, 131 rapes, and more than 12,000 complaints. The numbers are an undercount, with many instances of gender-based violence going unreported.

"Some motivations for killing women are because of honor and social media has played a negative role in this regard," said Ari Rafiq, deputy director of GDCVAW, told Peregraf.

"Some pages daily encourage the community to spread violence, justifying the killing of women under the pretext of protecting them," Rafiq added.

The Kurdistan Parliament suspended the use of Article 409 of the Iraqi Penal Code in 2015, which gives a maximum of three years in prison for murders done in the name of honor.

"The type of murder will affect the punishment, but generally murder under Article 406…is sentenced to death or life imprisonment for 20 years," Vena Bakr, a lawyer, told Peregraf, referring to the more general statute on international murder.

"As soon as the name of honor is mentioned, a woman comes to mind, not a man. If there is really something called honor, men and women should take the same responsibility and honor should not be applied only to women," Bakr said.

On March 8, International Women's Day, human rights organizations and women's defenders plan to announce the "Movement to Stop Killing Women in Kurdistan," with the aim of reducing the number of women who are murdered in the name of honor.

For Sarwin, however, it is too late.

Her body lay unclaimed by her family in the Erbil forensic medicine department for more than a week.

Women's rights activist Sairan Nakhshin told Peregraf that Sarwin’s family only came and buried her body after she told the media that she would come and claim it herself.

"I did not give up on the case until Sarwin’s family sent all the evidence that she had been buried," Nakhshin said.

Sarwin is also one of the approximately 5,000 women who have sought refuge in women’s shelters in Erbil, Sulaimaniyah, and Duhok.

"We know that shelters are a kind of prison and most of the women who face it have regretted it from the first day, but we are obliged to protect them, serve them, and investigate their problems until their violence disappears and their families accept it," Rafiq said.

"Shelters are a reason for killing women," said Nakhshin, who argued that "there are many cases where her life is more in danger when she enters a shelter" because it is seen as a slight to the honor of her family that she has sought refuge elsewhere.

Nakhshin said that women should consult legal professionals when confronting violence before making any decisions.

GDCVAW said that it works on about 20 legal cases each day, including on those who go to shelters.

"If we compare the number of survivors [who went to a] shelter with the victims, we find the presence of shelters is necessary," said Rafiq, disagreeing with Nakhshin.

Police say that violence against women is enabled by the presence of a variety of weapons that people keep at home, including brutal tools like hammers.

"Many of the reasons for killing women are due to the presence of weapons in their homes and most houses have unauthorized weapons," said Sarkawt Ahmed, spokesperson for the Sulaimaniyah police, referring to unregistered firearms.

According to official statistics, the KRG has issued more the 20,700 firearms permits since 1991, but the actual number of weapons in circulation is much higher.

"Unemployment and crises have made human beings constantly unstable," said Choman Ahmed, a social researcher.

In recent years, salary delays, shortages and price increases of fuel and food, poor public services like water and electricity, and insufficient infrastructure have contributed to social and political unrest.

"Instead of being busy [with work], people are busy with each other's private lives, which makes bad thinking happen in their minds and killings," Ahmed added, noting the negative impact of social media.

"The marketing of murder should be prevented by law, regardless of anyone or gender, because the publication of the news and the manner of the killing encourages copycat crimes," Rafiq said.