Heading home at the end of a school day, girls and young women are often subject to catcalls and verbal harassment from young men hovering outside school gates. First-time offenders caught by patrollers will have to sign pledges not to repeat loitering and harassment, while recurring offenders could face arrest and court-ordered punishment.
A security committee comprised of local police forces, Asayesh and traffic police will work in coordination with the town’s education department to enforce the new rule, Soran’s mayor said. The committee will be operational from Sunday onwards.
"We have been suffering from this phenomenon for a long time, and it is making a lot of issues for us," Mayor Kirmanj Izaat told Rudaw. "We finally reached the conclusion that we must end it.”
Soran Police spokesperson Shamal Dewari outlined procedure to Rudaw English on Saturday.
"We will take those caught harassing girls outside high schools to police stations. If no complaints are lodged against them, we will only make them fill out a pledge form and take their fingerprints.”
“If they repeat the offence and are seen harassing girls outside schools again, we will refer their pledge forms to court and a judge will decide on their case," Dewari explained.
The decision by local authorities in Soran was widely welcomed on social media.
"It is a big shame for Kurdish teens doing such things," Rezhwan Ghafur writes on a Rudaw Sorani Facebook post on the subject. "In other countries, youth are the dynamo of invention."
"They must be punished," Goraz Balaky commented. "It is a very bad and dangerous culture that has developed among teens."
"Why just in Soran?" Ibrahim Muhamad writes, calling on the KRG to implement this decision across the Kurdistan Region.
Speaking to Rudaw English on Saturday, the head of a women’s rights NGO echoed the sentiment that the decision should be expanded to include other parts of Kurdistan, where strict proposals to minimize gender-based violence and harassment often go unenforced.
Suzan Arif, head of the Women Empowerment Organization, hailed the “very good” decision, but called for nuance in its implementation.
"It should not mean that it will bar any man passing by girls’ high schools, - rather, they should only monitor those who wander and stay there for no reason," Arif said.
Women and girls are harassed not just in schools, Arif explained, so the government “must expand measures to prevent the harassment of women in many other public places."
"With such measures, women and girls feel there is law and the government protecting them," she added.
