Pregnant Teenager in Iraqi Kurdistan Could be killed by Relatives

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – A teenage pregnancy in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region, where so-called “honor killing” of female relatives is common, has placed a social services center in a quandary: What to do before the girl’s pregnancy begins to show and her life is endangered?

“We are trying all possible ways to resolve the issue,” said Saman Siwaili, head of the Family Consultation Center in the city of Sulaimani in the autonomous north.  He said the girl was 18, and four months pregnant.

“We cannot find a doctor to abort the baby, we cannot find a preacher to issue a fatwa (religious ruling) for the doctors to abort the pregnancy, and as soon as the pregnancy becomes visible she will be killed,” he said. “We don’t know what to do.”

Siwaili said that the center did not want to publicize the case, but he was speaking out to warn other teenagers, and prevent from falling into the same trap.

“Underage girls are falling victim to this problem.  We ask them to be careful and avoid this mistake,” he said, adding that the pregnant girl causing them the worries insists she had been the victim of a sexual assault, and refuses to admit she had made a mistake.

Siwaili said that most of the women killed in honor killings have similar stories, but believes that religious preachers could help save their lives with a fatwa.

A member of the Kurdistan Fatwa Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the story, told Rudaw that an abortion was not allowed in this instance.

“The punishment according to Islamic law is 100 lashes, to be administered after the baby is born.  No physician should help abort the baby, because he will be assuming the sin of adultery.”

But preacher Atta Muhammed Penjweni said that, since Islamic laws do not wholly apply in the country, the problem should be solved by “other means.” This means “a green light for abortion, because otherwise the mother will be killed. The life of the mother should take priority,” he said.

The Ashti non-governmental organization, which is working to raise awareness, wants the fight against teenage pregnancies to begin in the schools.

Hadi Ameen, director of the NGO, said that his organization wants to enlist the help of psychologists, sociologists and educators to start a project “via the school curricula.”

“We want to educate youngsters in the schools on how to have their relationships without jeopardizing their lives,” he said, adding that there were 16 reported underage pregnancies in the Kurdistan Region last year.
 

“Most of the big problems start with little relationships. Then phone numbers are exchanged, and after that boys press for sexual relationships. Sometimes girls are forced into it,” Ameen said.

According to official figures, last year 47 women were murdered by their relatives in so-called honor killings in the Kurdistan Region, and another 42 committed suicide in cases involving family “honor.”

Women’s activists are incensed that in most “honor” crimes, relatives who commit the murders receive light punishments by the courts, or are sometimes not even tried. Many cases also go unreported, activists say.