Kurdish clerics urge protection for women amid femicide rise
Shafaq News – Al-Sulaymaniyah
On Saturday, religious representatives in the Kurdistan Region discussed women’s status and rights in monotheistic religions, amid a documented rise in femicides.
Women’s rights advocate Shatha Bashir of the March 8 Alliance told Shafaq News that 53 women were killed in the first 11 months of 2025 in the Region, while many killings go unreported. Amnesty International had around 30 women killed in 2023 and 44 in 2022.
Speaking to our agency, Marywan Qardaghi, a religious representative in Al-Sulaymaniyah, said all monotheistic religions call for treating women as equal partners, rather than according to social practices that diminish their status. He noted signs of declining abuse in some areas as religious and social awareness increases.
Bahai representative Hussein Haddad, meanwhile, described women as a “school” central to building society, stressing that empowerment and protection are essential obligations.
Participants agreed on the importance of continued coordination between religious representatives and civil society organizations to strengthen awareness of women’s rights and curb gender-based violence, saying women’s protection is “foundational” to a stable society.
The meeting coincided with the global 16 Days of Activism campaign against gender-based violence. On Thursday, the March 8 Alliance held a protest denouncing the growing number of violent crimes against women, and organized awareness events and discussions on Iraq’s newly passed Personal Status Law, which expands Islamic courts’ authority over family issues and, according to Bashir, “causes significant harm to women.”
Hate speech against women has also become widespread on social media, where news posts on “honor” killings often draw comments praising perpetrators, with no requirement for platforms to moderate such content.
The Women’s Legal Assistance Organization documented 226 cases of digital abuse in 2024. While Kurdistan Region’s 2011 Law No. 8 on Combating Domestic Violence criminalizes domestic abuse and female genital mutilation and allows life sentences for honor crimes, it does not apply to online offenses, leaving survivors without legal protection.
* The Bahai Faith is a monotheistic world religion founded in 19th-century Persia that advocates the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. It is based on the belief in a single, unknowable God who reveals His will through a series of divine messengers, including Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and its founder, Bahaullah.
