ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Convictions on drug-related charges have increased significantly, the general director of the Kurdistan Region’s correctional facilities told Rudaw on Saturday.
A total of 5,487 individuals are locked up in the Region’s correctional facilities, 1,311 of whom are there on drug-related offenses, according to Ihsan Abdulrahman, director of correctional facilities.
“Fifty women are among those convicted of drug use or drug dealing,” Abdulrahman said.
Nearly half of the people imprisoned for drug-related crimes, 594, were dealers and the rest were users.
This is an increase in the number of convictions from four years ago. According to Abdulrahman, in the first four months of 2024, more than 200 people have been convicted.
In addition, a “significant number” of people are in detention awaiting verdicts on drug-related charges, Abdulrahman added.
Drug trafficking and use have been on the rise in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
In an interview with Rudaw in March, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Labour and Social Affairs Minister Kwestan Muhamad issued a warning about the spread of drugs.
“Drugs are a great danger and it is more dangerous than terrorism for the Kurdistan Region. The threat has reached a level where a nine-year-old child was addicted to drugs,” she said.
The minister also stressed that authorities have recorded an increase in drug usage and dealing among women in particular.
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, during a conference on combating the drug trade in October, said that the Region is “seriously and widely working to eradicate and combat” the threat of drugs, and called on the Kurdish and international community to cooperate with Erbil to eliminate the source of what he described as an “endemic” problem.
