375 reported cases of violence against women in Iraqi Kurdistan in 9 months: directorate
Photo: Courtesy of Tijana Bosnjakov/Pexels
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The General-Directorate of Combating Violence Against Women has said that it recorded as many as 375 cases of gender-based violence in just nine months this year.
The general directorate said on Monday that at least 30 women were murdered and 46 committed suicide in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region through the end of September.
During that same period, 125 women were burned and 81 others burned themselves, the directorate said. There were at least 93 cases of sexual abuse.
Like in the rest of the world, most domestic abuse and gender-based violence goes unreported to the authorities, so the extent of the issue is likely much greater than the data suggests.
The release coincided with the beginning of the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which is an annual campaign that takes place around the world. It begins of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, 2019 and runs until Human Rights Day on December 10.
This year’s theme is “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands against Rape!”
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) launched the campaign with an event in Erbil attended by senior government officials, including Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Rewaz Fayaq and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani.
“It is the ethical responsibility…of the whole community to combat violence against women and to have a strategy to do so” said Speaker Fayaq, adding that it was Parliament’s job to create the appropriate legislative environment in which that can occur. Fayaq is the second woman to hold the post of speaker.
She said that the Parliament would work to amend domestic violence legislation so that it would better meet the everyday needs of women.
The KRG has been trying to improve its record on violence against women, setting up a hotline last year for women to report incidents and get legal, social, and psychological help.
After 29 of Kurdish ruling, Women do not have the same rights as men in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | nrttv.com
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