The woman, a minor identified only by her initials as K.M.A, was allegedly shot dead by her brother B.M.A, also a minor, in Zakho’s Darkar subdistrict at approximately 10:00 am on Sunday.
“The crime was committed by a Kalashnikov weapon and we have launched an investigation,” Zakho police spokesperson Colonel Ahmed Ramadhan told Rudaw’s Soran Hussein.
“The suspect was immediately arrested by police,” Ahmed said.
The Kurdistan Region suffers from high rates of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, domestic violence, so-called honor violence, child marriages, and female genital mutilation.
At least 30 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2023, according to the Region’s Combatting Violence against Women Directorate. In 2022, the Region reported its highest femicide rate in years, with at least 44 women killed.
Femicides in the Region are often linked with the terms “social dispute” and “honor killings,” that perpetrators use to justify murdering their mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives.
In December 2021, the Kurdistan Region launched an app to tackle violence against women. It also set up a support hotline for victims of violence in 2018, about seven years after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) passed its Combating Domestic Violence Law, criminalizing domestic violence and equipping the directorate to combat violence by investigating it.
