Standing Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Including HIV and AIDS – IFMSA Kurdistan (Slemani LC)
SLEMANI (AUIS Voice) — Violence against women is a worldwide problem that occurs in all social, religious and cultural group. Iraq and the Kurdistan region have had their fair share of this problem. United Nations’ 2016 Human Development Report ranked Iraq 123rd in the gender inequality index out of 157, which a considerably low rank even for this part of the world.
A wide range of negative health outcomes and even death have been recognised as consequences of violence. Sexually and physically abused women have a 50 – 70% risk of developing neurological, gynecological, and stress related problems. Because of its significant impact on the health and well-being of women, it is extremely important to address this problem urgently.
Honour killings, child marriage and female genital mutilation are unfortunately still seen in the region. According to united nation’s global database on violence against women, Iraq still has a 24% child marriage rate, which is the percentage of women who were first married before the age of 18, and about 7.4% of women aged 15 to 49% have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting, and this figure is considered to be much higher in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
Although these data are not readily available, according to a study performed by a group of researchers from Hawler medical university the prevalence of overall lifetime intimate partner violence against women In Erbil was 58.6% while the proportions of women who have experienced at least one form of lifetime intimate partner violence were: 52.6% for emotional abuse; 38.9% for physical violence; and 21.1% for sexual violence.
Violence against women happens everyday in Kurdistan but what is unfortunate is that these stories only catch the public’s attention when a woman is killed. In 2019 gender based violence killed 120 women in the Kurdistan region of Iraq according to statistics from the directorate of combatting violence against women.
The Covid-19 pandemic forced governments throughout the world to implement life-saving public health measures such as lockdowns, curfews and other restrictions on movement to contain the spread of the virus. For women and girls, however, these measures were also the source of increased risk of violence and loss of life.
Recent global and regional reports have shown an increase in the cases of violence against women and especially domestic based violence, furthermore, many of the measures that were necessary to contain the spread of the virus have also significantly limited the ability of survivors to shield themselves from their abusers or access support mechanism.
Given that Iraqi women were already exposed to high risk of domestic violence prior to the pandemic, this sets a dangerous precedence for the state and well-being of women in Iraq.
Fortunately, the public’s perception on this issue and women’s rights are improving, especially among the younger generation and the more educated members of the society. The government is also stepping up to solve this issue. The KRG has been trying to improve its record on violence against women.
The government set up a hotline in 2018 for women to report incidents of violence being committed against them and get legal, social, and psychological help. A few months ago, the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government’s general directorate of combating violence against women and family announced that it will launch an app that will connect survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence with legal and social services.
The app will connect women who experience violence or abuse with the 119 hotlines to report any incidence and connect the callers with services. “The app will also help in creating a documentation about incidence including time, location and contact information for potential witnesses” Directorate General Manager Kurdo Omer told Voice of America [Kurdish] (VOA).
Last year on October along a five kilometre long road of Sulaymaniyah a Kurdish artist unveiled a stitched collage of clothes from women survivors of domestic violence. Tara Abdallah, the artist who stitched the artwork that had been strung up across the road, collected the clothes of women subjected to violence by their husbands and families throughout the region.
The visual artist asked women survivors to donate a piece of clothing that symbolised their trauma and sewed them together to create a giant, colourful patchwork to be displayed to everyone passing by the road.
Many national and international organisations work in order to address the problems that we just mentioned above and many of them have fortunately had a good impact on the society.
There is the annual 16 days of activism against gender-based violence which is an international campaign that starts on the 25th of November, the international day for the elimination of violence against women, and runs until the 10th of December, Human rights day.
In 2021, we fortunately saw a lot of activities being performed to celebrate this campaign, it started off with an opening ceremony on the 25th of November in which many organisations participated in spreading awareness and initiating activities to eliminate violence against women.
One of those organizations was IFMSA (International Federation of medical students association)— an international organisation set up and run by medical students all over the world— hosted multiple events and projects on the topic.
Many other events were also performed such as seminars and other public events to raise awareness on this issue.
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