By PESHAWA HAWRAMANI
HAWRAMAN, Kurdistan Region – The people of Biyara attribute their Zoroastrian past for their tolerant traditions. In this remote part of northern Iraq domestic violence remains virtually unknown, and divorce is rare.
"I have been working here for five years and I witnessed only two self-immolation cases among women," said Nukhsha Salih, the administrator of Biyara, a rural area of northern Sulaimani province in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, where violence against women and so-called “honor killings” are common.
"The people of this region respect women very much. The greatest evidence for this is that I have been working here for five years and have not faced any problems,” said Salih.
"It is the safest place I have ever worked,” she added.
The dozen or so villages in the area, which lies in the region of Hawraman, share a pre-Islamic Zoroastrian past, and have the lowest levels of violence against women.
"Before the arrival of Islam, our religion was Zoroastrianism. One of the important points that is mentioned by the religion is respect for women, and hurting them is regarded as a sacrilege. Our ancestors, who were Zoroastrians, have respected women for this reason," said a village elderly, known by everyone as Uncle Iqbal.
He said there were no forced or early marriages or other such customs that many women in other parts of Iraq have to endure. "Our ancestors never allowed such customs. Girls here choose the man they want to marry without being forced. There has never been a forced marriage in our history," he added.
Lieutenant Barzan Osman Muhammad, who has headed the Biyara police station for a year, told Rudaw that, "There have been no murder cases since I began working here last year. Even before my arrival, there had been no murder cases. Fights also are extremely rare here," he added.
He said there was only one reported theft last year, and that too was related to a domestic problem that was settled before reaching the courts.
"I have never heard of a man beating a woman here,” said Amina, a housewife and mother of seven. “It is considered a shameful act here to beat women."
Statistics in the Kurdistan Region show that divorce has been on the rise in the main three cities of Kurdistan, but remains low in Hawraman.
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