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Kurdistan: Marriage Misery Driving Women
to Despair
29.9.2006
By Amanj Khalil in Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 196,
29-Sep-06)
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Often with no one to turn to, battered wives see
suicide as the only way to end their agony.
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region (Iraq), --
Driven to despair by her husband’s constant
beatings, Pakhshan Muhamad, 36, decided seven months
ago that she could take no more.
She tried to commit suicide, pouring kerosene on her
body and setting herself alight. Somehow she
survived - but the scars are still visible on her
face despite several plastic surgery operations.
“[My mother-in-law] made false accusations against
me in front of my husband. He always believed her -
and this created problems for me,” said Pakhshan,
who has four children.
Cases of attempted suicide have spiraled in recent
years - self-immolation being the most common method
and the one with the highest number of fatalities.
In the first six months of 2006 alone, more than 830
women in the region have sought to end their lives
this way, with around 350 of them dying from severe
burns, according to figures compiled by the
Sulaimaniyah Emergency Hospital, the only medical
centre in this part of the country able to treat
burn victims.
The numbers are a big increase on last year when 715
women attempted self-immolation - a fifth of them
dying of their injuries. Much fewer but,
nonetheless, an increasing number of local women try
to kill themselves by taking drugs or poison: 80 in
204 rising to 210 the following year.
Zainab Osman, 34, is tired of life. She works from
dawn to dusk, doing all the housework, caring for
her three children and tending to sixty sheep on the
family farm in Taza, 90 kilometres southeast of
Sulaimaniyah.
Her husband offers no help at all, instead only
compounding Zainab troubles. “He thinks I am an
animal. He wants me only for sex and for taking care
of the sheep. Whenever I disobey him, he starts
hitting me,” she said.
She feels so desperate that she’s twice tried to
poison herself with pesticides. “I wanted to scare
my husband, so he would not hurt me again,” she
said.
Sameera Hassan, a social researcher on women’s
affairs at New Life, an NGO that tries to educate
women and to promote women’s rights, said one of the
main factors driving them to suicide is physical
violence. “Many women are beaten and humiliated by
their men,” she said.
Another common reason especially for young women is
forced marriage. Sameera Muhammed, a social
researcher from Sulaimaniyah, said, “They are
prevented from doing what they want, especially in
choosing their future spouse. Those girls are
educated, but their relatives often still adhere to
old social traditions.”
Many women seem to see no other way out because they
are afraid to talk to anyone about their problems.
In the more conservative rural areas where tribal
traditions are still strong, it is considered a
shame to share marital difficulties with people from
outside the family. In these traditional families,
divorce is not an option for the women.
Nigar Kamal, a university student, took a drug
overdose after her father hit her for wearing short
skirts. She recovered, but then later set herself on
fire to protest against the restrictions imposed on
her. Again she escaped death, and refused to change
the way she dressed. Relatives accused her of having
loose morals, and her father began beating her once
more. “People cannot accept change here,” she said,
“Especially if women want to change things, for
example their clothes.”
Unable to turn to other members of their family for
help, Nigar and her like also have little prospect
of getting specialist counseling, as few
psychologists or psychiatrists are prepared to deal
with such cases. And most women are too embarrassed
and shy to seek such assistance.
Domestic violence victim Nashmeel Abdullah, 43, is
one of the few who’ve tried to get outside help, but
her experience is discouraging. "Psychiatrists throw
you in a dirty hospital. That is why no one dares to
go," she said, adding that women also fear being
stigmatised. "If you go to psychiatrist, people say
you went mad."
The concept of shame and honour is so powerful in
this part of the world that women who’ve attempted
suicide often dare not speak of their ordeal. Family
members accompanying them to hospital say they’ve
had accidents, but doctors are able to distinguish
whether a patient has burned herself deliberately or
accidentally.
Traces of kerosene on the upper part of the body are
a strong indication of self-immolation, said a
doctor at Sulaimaniyah Emergency Hospital who
declined to give his name. Sometimes, patients tell
doctors and nurses the truth, he said, but they
would not notify the police fearful members of their
family might be arrested.
Pakhshan regrets what she did to herself and hopes
that one day she will “look like I did before”.
"I call on all women not to even think about setting
themselves alight because a deformed face and body
is worse than death,” she said.
In attempt to deter women from resorting to
self-immolation, several Kurdish NGOs run education
campaigns about dealing with domestic violence. The
Hataw (sunlight) organisation, for instance,
prepares regular radio dramas on the subject. Aso
Ibraheem, the head of Hataw, knows it is a problem
that will not go away overnight. “Ours is a
long-term project,” he said.
Amanj Khalil is an IWPR contributor in
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region (Iraq).
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