|
Of women who set themselves on fire in
Iraq's Kurdistan
23.11.2011
|
|
|
|
November 23, 2011
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Women all over the world
are immolating themselves for all sorts of reasons,
against all sorts of social abnormalities and the
same is true in Iraqi Kurdistan where the practice
is said to be on the rise.
The figure of women burning themselves alive has
gone up from 39 in 1991 to 441 cases in 2010, the
London-based Dar al-Hayat reported on Wednesday
citing cases registered by the police in Kurdistan
region in Iraq's north.
According to the newspaper’s estimates, one girl
commits suicide every 20 hours while 14,000 have
self-immolated since 1990.
|
 |
Until mid- 2011, the percentage of the women
committing suicide through self-immolation was
slightly more than the same period last year, a
female official who wished to remain anonymous told
the newspaper.
The official did not want to disclose the exact
figure for fear of implicating herself and staff
members from investigation.
The figures, however vague, do not indicate how many
of the women were killed by their family or forced
to take such drastic action because they were
accused of tainting their family’s honor. The figure
also does not include those who committed suicide
and were buried in the mountains in small cemeteries
in villages without the knowledge of the region’s
authorities.
Abdul Jabar Zibari, a researcher, told the newspaper
that the inability of civil organizations in getting
the exact figure of the cases, and the reluctance by
many investigation centers to follow up with these
files,www.ekurd.net
has
resulted in the loss of important information that
can lead to understanding why women immolate
themselves.
Another researcher Ezz al-Din Hafith said that the
“the absence of the truths,” from the police files
and treating the incidents as just “accidents” make
it impossible for any researcher to understand what
is happening in Iraqi Kurdistan.
“A lot of these so-called accidents were not
convincing to even some of the police officers,”
Hafith said.
“Many of the police officers did not want to delve
into these files [for fear that it would] embroil
them in tribal issues that they did not want to be
involved in.”
One policeman told Hafith that after studying dozens
of such cases, he learnt that the women chose to
kill themselves and with them, bury whatever secret
it is they didn’t want their husbands or families to
discover.
A former MP and activist in women’s rights, Bakhshan
Zanka, said that the violence against women is the
number one reason behind the rise in such suicides.
Another activist, Jimin Mohamed Saleh said that
“violence, social suppression, and the feeling of
oppression and loneliness are also factors that
cause the incidents.”
Forced early marriages, failed romances, honor
killings in the Iraqi Kurdistan region are all
reasons researchers and activists agree are reasons
behind this brutal phenomena.
By Al Arabia - Dubai
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
alarabiya.net
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the
content of news information on this page
|
®
