ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Friday reiterated their commitment and support for the protection of women’s rights and freedoms in the Region, stressing the necessity of such values for a stable and civil society.
“As always, we will continue work and efforts to achieve more and protect women’s rights and create a society where women are free, equal, and unburdened by any threats of violence and killing under any pretext,” read a statement from President Barzani on occasion of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Similar thoughts were echoed by PM Barzani, affirming his cabinet’s “fixed stance” in combating violence against women, and work towards eliminating gender discrimination in the Kurdistan Region.
“Kurdistan women have accomplished important achievements in recent years, but unfortunately there are still obstacles and they encounter violence, so we hope with the cooperation of all parties and components of society, to end all kinds of violence and gender discrimination,” said PM Barzani.
The President vowed to continue efforts towards eliminating “radical mentalities” and any form of violence or violations against women’s rights and freedoms, saying that “unless women are free, there can be no free, equal, peaceful and advanced civil society.”
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.
This year has seen an alarming rise of women killings across the Kurdistan Region. Erbil-based NGO, SEED Foundation, said in June that at least 24 women were killed in the first six months of 2022 as a result of gender-based violence.
Forty-five women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2021, up from 25 the previous year, AFP reported in March.
Suspects and perpetrators are often arrested but not prosecuted with the police withholding from sharing information with media and the public.
The KRG passed the Combating Domestic Violence Law in 2011, criminalizing domestic violence.
