MESOP EXTRA BY OUR FRIEND SHERI LAIZER – In the name of ‘honour’ – lingering ghosts of the girls killed in Iraqi Kurdistan

27 Oct 2016 – ekurd net – Shanaz (not her real name) cannot physically run away from her father because he has bound her legs and taken away her cell phone. Shanaz had received an amorous message from her boyfriend – her happy behaviour alerted her parents that something was going on.

When Shanaz’s father found out that his daughter had been meeting a boy in secret on her way home from school he dragged her off to a local doctor. Shanaz was forced to undergo a virginity test because her mother had said her daughter was “walking in a funny way.” After the visit to the doctor Sardar (name changed to protect identity) heard his girlfriend, Shanaz, had been killed. He fell apart. His father sent him out of Kurdistan because Shanaz’s father was a powerful man with tribal backing. The Mullah’s Daughter :

In a small village on the Iraq-Iran border not far from the bustling city of Sulaimani, Hevidar, (not her real nme) the daughter of a Mullah, has fallen in love and wants to marry her boyfriend. Her father’s male relatives have been active with the Salafist terror group, Ansar al-Islam, reported to have been linked with Al Qaeda.1

Hevidar’s tragedy follows a similar course to that of Shanaz. Love has become a crime that will demand the ultimate penalty: the twenty-year old has no choice as to who she marries and her father has judged her boyfriend not to be sufficiently religious. His marriage proposals have been rejected. As their secret concourse was suspected owing to the proposals, Hevidar is dragged off to the local doctor for a virginity test.

Murders may be committed based on unscientific testing

Regrettably, for Kurdish females in Iraq, virginity testing is carried out along with other abhorrent practices like female genital cutting – whether partial or entailing the complete removal of the female external sexual organs.2

For their part, virginity tests are carried out according to the ‘honour’ ethic: a girl may be brought before a doctor and subjected to a humiliating probe – often a male doctor such that if she had still been a virgin she would feel deeply violated by the test alone. If no longer a virgin, she would be deeply humiliated and her life put at risk by the findings.

In their recent book, authors Nazand Begikhani, Aisha K. Gill and Gill Hague observed on this issue: “The Kurdistan Institute for Judicial Medicine carries out virginity tests for all murder, burning and suicide cases, where a file is sent to the court, a distressing practice related to honour. According to Dr Yasin Ameen, director of the Institute who is personally involved in this process: ’60 to 70 percent of the murder cases of women in Kurdistan Region are honour-related.’3

Some Kurdish Muslim and Yezidi girls captured by Islamic State (IS) militants and forced to become sex slaves, have also reportedly been forced to undergo virginity tests after being freed. 4

“Human Rights Watch interviewed several victims who lived through a life of captivity, forced marriage, and subsequent sexual abuse, who were then made to undergo the abusive tests, after they escaped and thought they had reached safety in Iraqi Kurdistan…

“The WHO has clearly stated that the concept of virginity tests has no place in modern medical practices, and the two-finger virginity test has no scientific validity, and is simply painful and distressing for the victim. Based on the incorrect idea that women who have not had penetrative sex will definitely bleed when they have intercourse for the first time, the two-finger virginity test was used to determine whether a rape victim is telling the truth in India as well.5

Medical ignorance in Kurdistan combined with the socio-cultural devaluation of women is also compounded by Suras of the Koran that state that females are unequal with males.6 Conservative religious values linked with increasing obedience to Shari’a law in Iraq now clearly vie with the secular justice system.

In October last year (2015) 21-year-old S’nur was yet another victim of ‘honor’ killing. S’nur had stayed in a woman’s shelter for a year before seeking her freedom outside its walls. Tragically, her father caught up with her and shot her in Mother’s Park. She died in hospital from the injuries inflicted 7.

A year before, Dunya, just fifteen years old, had been married off to a 45-year-old man with a first wife. Mutilated and killed in the name of ‘honour’ she had no chance of choosing her own husband after an arranged marriage deprived her of that freedom. Her ‘husband’ suspected her of seeing a boy her own age. The horrific account was overtaken in the public consciousness by the increased violence of ISIS in Kurdistan that same year. 8

If girls attend a girl’s school the only place they will meet boys is outside the school or in cafes, restaurants, shops, supermarkets, at family weddings etc. If someone witnesses a boy departing from the house of an unmarried girl, he may have risked her ‘honour’ just by being there. Gossip can lead to ‘honour’ violence if the girl’s family is conservative and supports ‘honour’ traditions. These traditions include support for arranged marriages, marriage between paternal cousins, marriages of young girls with much older men, some who have wives and children already, and marriages made from birth pledging to ‘give the girl’ to the boy’s family.

Some Kurdish families are less strict on contacts between young people so long as they do not cross the line and have sexual intercourse outside marriage. But young love is passionate and teens may lack the mind-set to take precautions when they are in love. When young people finally manage to be alone they hope the location is sufficiently secure and allow themselves to be driven by their feelings and natural desires. If found out, or if the girl falls pregnant, the killing of the girl alone may not be deemed sufficient to ‘cleanse the stain’ of dishonour and the boy may also be targeted and killed if caught. Males are only reportedly killed in a quarter of such cases. Females bear the brut of the ‘honour’ ethic.

Unreported ‘honour’ killings

German NGO, WADI,9 based in Iraqi Kurdistan had not heard of the cases of Shanaz and Hevidar: the killers had remained untouchable, the girls’ deaths covered up or false accounts given by someone involved in the chain of relations.

Shanaz’s boyfriend believes his sweetheart was murdered and her death has so far gone unreported because her father enjoys the protection of a powerful tribe that also enjoys good relations with the PUK.

MP Evar Ibrahim opined that the “political parties are often barriers to the justice system, preventing prosecution of killers by acting as middlemen and brokering reconciliation deals.

“When party office(r)s appear, the court cannot keep the criminals in prison,” Evar said.10

Reporting suspected ‘honour’ killings to the Asayish11 is also risky as those that work inside the Kurdish security services generally tend to uphold the patriarchal system and main political parties.

Despite the legislation introduced in Kurdistan, the director of the Women’s Empowerment Organization, Susan Aref, underscored that the main problem is the patriarchal system where everything is “run by men.”

Although ‘honour killings’ have been declared illegal since 2008 some religious leaders spearheaded a campaign against the new laws claiming “a father needs to be in control of his children and a husband needs to be able to beat his wife…” Aref said. “Mothers (also) need to be taught… to educate their children not to discriminate between boys and girls.” 12

WADI estimates around 10,000 women have burned to death since the Kurdish region gained autonomy in 1991. 13 Just how many of these were genuine suicides is unknown as suicides are not investigated. It is therefore not difficult for the killer(s) to mask the death of a female relative claiming she killed herself. 14

The UN estimates there may be as many as fifty ‘honour’ killings each month in the Kurdistan region and that most go unreported. ‘Honour’ killings continue to be a leading cause of death for women owing to the increasingly oppressed position of women in Iraqi society… 15

Banaz Omer, of the Zhyan Group emphasised how “The war against the Islamic State (IS) has also increased the violence and assaults against women since many women whose husbands were killed in the war are now being abused and ignored…”

Investigating cases of suspected ‘honour’ killing where the partner knew of threats made against a girl by her family but he had fled the country and learned later from villagers or relatives that his girlfriend had been murdered may lack the political backing such as to try to bring a case or have suspicions investigated without putting the workers from women’s rights organisations at risk. Male workers face the same taboos as their female counterparts within these projects, but are at less risk of actual harm and of ostracism.

One field worker (who did not wish to be named) described to me that when he approached the house of a man suspected of an ‘honour’ killing and asked which house the man lived in he was told by those around him to show a permit from the Asayish (Kurdish security). “The man could even have been standing there behind me listening and I wouldn’t have known,” he said with a chill in his voice.

1[1] http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/13
2[1] www.stopfgmmideast.org/campaign-in-iraqi-kurdistan-paying-a-visit-to-a-mullah-who-promotes-fgm/
3 Honour-based Violence: Experiences and Counter-Strategies in Iraqi Kurdistan by Nazand Begikhani and Aisha K. Gill, Routledge, 2015.https://www.routledge.com/Honour-Based-Violence-Experiences-and-Counter-Strategies-in-Iraqi-Kurdistan/Begikhani-Gill/p/book/9781409421900
4[1] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-yazidi-sex-slaves-freed-daesh-forced-undergo-virginity-tests-1541036
5[1] http://www.vagabomb.com/Former-Sex-Slaves-of-the-ISIS-Forced-to-Undergo-Virginity-Tests/
6[1] https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Top_10_Controversial_Verses_Concerning_Women
7 https://ekurd.net/father-kills-daughter-honor-killing-kurdistan-2015-10-08
8[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-groundtruth-project/kurdish-teenagers-honor-k_b_5596318.html
9[1] http://www.wadinet.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WADI-2015-ANNUAL-REPORT.pdf
10 http://ekurd.net/father-kills-daughter-honor-killing-kurdistan-2015-10-08
11[1] “The Kurdish Interior Ministry originally controlled the organization. After the fighting between the KDP and PUK in the mid-1990s each party formed their own Asayish. In 2004 they were made independent of all ministries, with their own budgets. They report directly to the heads of each party. Each town and city in Kurdistan has an Asayish office that also operates its own jail. The headquarters are in Erbil for the KDP, and Sulaimaniyah for the PUK.” http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/9/state6494.htm
12[1] https://www.womenpeacemakersprogram.org/news/challenges-facing-womens-participation-in-peacebuilding-processes-in-iraq/
13http://en.wadi-online.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=535:ekurd-iraqi-kurdistan-seen-from-a-womens-perspective&catid=11:analyse&Itemid=108
14[1] [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-groundtruth-project/kurdish-teenagers-honor-k_b_5596318.html
15[1] http://www.passblue.com/2014/05/06/in-kurdistan-and-beyond-honor-killings-remind-women-they-are-worthless/

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a contributing writer for Ekurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

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