Iraqi analyst unveils reasons behind widespread honor killings and violence against Iraqi women
The crises in Iraq are getting worse and worse, hitting all sectors of the country; this in turn leads to an increase in crime rates and the spread of violence, especially with regard to the file of Iraqi women, as a result of the lack of security in the country. Women may suffer from killing, sexual assault, and ongoing violations due to the lack of social and cultural awareness in the country.
New statistics on crimes against women in Iraq
In a report published by Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch confirmed that since 1991, about 4,000 women and girls in Iraq have been subjected to honor killings.
The UN says 46% of married women have been victims of domestic violence, with one-third of them subjected to physical and sexual violence.
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Women in Iraq suffer so much that 75% did not speak to the police, fearing further violence.
Perhaps the most prominent example of the spread of violence is the case of Iraqi activist Tiba Al-Ali, who died of “suffocation at the hands of her parents” because of her residence outside Iraq. As well as, Malak Al-Zubaidi was the one who was forced by marital violence to burn herself in 2020.
In Wasit province on the border with Iran, a doctor killed his wife; she refused to let him sell land in her name to profit from the money.
Ten-year-old Zainab was sleeping in her mother’s lap at her home in Sadr City in Baghdad in mid-April 2022, when her father decided to beat her on the head with a heavy stick that broke her skull and broke her teeth. The man was insisting on killing his daughter.
Iraqi women’s conditions deteriorate
The deterioration in the conditions of women in particular began with the beginning of the economic embargo in Iraq in 1991, which was a point of a complete coup in living conditions and consequently in social relations in the country.
“The educated middle class has slipped away and become crushed, and education is no longer as social a necessity as it once was, but has been replaced by financial capacity and proximity to positions of power, whether government or clan or religious authority as well.”
Iraqis in both the city and the countryside are now looking for their tribal roots to protect themselves and their laws, now that the civil law has weakened and they are unable to protect them. They have been subjected to tribal customs, including norms related to how to deal with women, their education, their work, and the personal status of families.
There are no accurate statistics on the crimes attributed to the so-called “honor-washing and decontamination” in Iraq, which have claimed the lives of many girls and women, due to the fact that these crimes are covered up, and in many cases are attributed to “suicide”.
Wars and poverty
In this context, Dr. Abdul Karim Al-Wazzan, Iraqi Doctor of Political Sciences, says that honor crimes in Iraq are noticeably the result of wars, poverty, and the deterioration of security in the country.
He added: All of these matters resulted in social crimes due to chaos and instability in the security, social and intellectual fields, and not applying the laws.
Al-Wazzan continued, “Iraq is witnessing multiple unannounced statistics on honor crimes, due to social and tribal thinking.
“There must also be economic stability, employment of idle hands, eradication of unemployment, combating drugs, openness at the Arab level in general, increasing cultural awareness, reviewing the curricula, highlighting the state apparatus, and not giving a role to the deep state in parallel with that of the security services, and so on,” he said.
