The young woman had an alleged “social dispute” with her family and left her house a year ago. She was handed to her grandfather by a court order, who gave her back to her family on Sunday, Sarkawt Ahmed, spokesperson for Sulaimani police, told Rudaw.
She was stabbed to death by her father on Monday, a day after being returned back to her family home, according to Ahmed.
“Last night, the girl slept at her father’s house. They had a quarrel this morning and the father killed her with a knife,” Ahmed said.
The perpetrator has been arrested.
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,” which 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.
