Illustrative Photo: Creative Commons/Pixabay
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— A young Kurdish girl was hanged to death earlier on Saturday in Iraqi Kurdistan region reportedly after her father found out about her love relationship.
Speaking to BasNews, Erbil Police Chief Abdulkhaliq Talaat, said that the initial investigations indicate that the young girl had left home with a man. She later returned home before being hanged by her father.
Talaat said the girl was only 22.
Her father and the man, who is said to be her lover, are under arrest now.
Talaat noted that the father has already admitted killing his own daughter.
Honor killings are a common feature in traditional Iraqi Kurdistan, where women who are deemed to have dishonored the family by associating with men who are not immediate relatives are killed by a relative.
Many other Kurdish women face forced and underage marriage, domestic violence or polygamy issues.
In November 2018 and according to statistics, 37 women have been killed as a result of domestic violence across Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
The government recently established a hotline, 119, that women can call to ask for help.
The line went live in September 2019 and quickly became an important tool in efforts to prevent and reduce violence against women in the Kurdistan Region.
Women can call the number to ask for legal, psychological, and social help from the Directorate.
Nearly 25 women call the line every day just in Erbil, according to officials at the section. It did not release data for the other governorates.
Since the early 1990s, several thousand Iraqi Kurdish women died of self-immolation. In 2015, the Kurdistan Regional Government listed 125 deaths by self-immolation.
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