ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - There have been more than 400 reports of people in Iraq experiencing sexual assault in the last six months, a relevant Iraqi directorate reported on Sunday, insisting on confidentiality for the survivors.
At least 327 women and 94 men have encountered sexual assault and violence in the past six months, the sexual incidents division within the Iraqi forensics directorate reported.
The cases have been documented and the information has been referred to relevant judicial and investigative authorities, the statement added.
Lina Asaad, the division’s director, stressed that the privacy and confidentiality of the survivors of sexual violence is protected by “a specialized team of competent forensic doctors experienced in how to deal with such cases due to their extreme importance and privacy.”
Stigma around sexual violence is high in Iraq where the under-reported issue is often wrapped up in notions of “honor”, and individuals often hide sexual abuse and violence.
Awareness of gender-based and sexual violence is slowly growing across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, helped by campaigns by civil society organizations, the governments in Erbil and Baghdad, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations.
The Iraqi penal code defines an imprisonment period not exceeding 15 years for any person charged with raping a man or a woman, specifying child rape as “an aggravating circumstance” which could result in increasing the severity of the punishment.
