Man arrested for allegedly slitting wife’s throat in Erbil

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Erbil police on Thursday announced the arrest of a man suspected of slitting his wife’s throat in the Kurdish capital, marking the most gruesome crime in a series of femicides that has engulfed the Kurdistan Region since the start of the year.

The body of Kwestan Pirot Khidr, 35, was discarded in front of Erbil's emergency hospital by her brother-in-law at around 3:00 pm, who immediately fled the scene. Her throat had been cut.

Erbil police spokesperson Hogir Aziz confirmed to Rudaw English that Pirot’s “throat was slit with a knife,” stating that her husband had been arrested as the main suspect of the crime.

Pirot, originally from Qaladze, had been living in Erbil's Kurdistan neighborhood with her husband and four children, according to information obtained by Rudaw's ground reporter Payam Sarbast.

Suspects of women killings are often arrested but investigations yield little or no result.

Immersed in anger, sorrow, and grief, her family members emerged from Erbil's forensics department, where their daughter's lifeless body lay as a result of the distressing crime.

Dejected elderly women sitting among a crowd of cars were seen by Rudaw English as they were leaving the forensics building, bypassing a number of media outlets with which they refused to speak. Dozens of men of varying ages came into view shortly after, cheeks as dry as a sun-hit land, and consumed with rage.

A young woman, believed to be in her early thirties, was seen sitting in the passenger's seat of one of the cars with tears penetrating her red-turned cheeks. Her eyes seemed lost, wandering in a world without Pirot. Rudaw English could not independently identify the woman's relation to the deceased victim.

Pirot is one of many women whose life was brutally taken under the pretext of “social dispute” and honor. Rudaw understands that Pirot and her husband were in conflict, and that she had left the home before returning just 20 days before her murder.

So-called honor killings, domestic violence, sex and gender-based violence remain on the rise in the Kurdistan Region’s patriarchal and conservative community. When committed in families run by tribalism, they often settle matters with their own moral and judicial codes, often involving a large sum of money given as compensation for taking someone’s soul. 

Earlier on Thursday, a man was arrested in Sulaimani for allegedly "abusing his ex-wife and imprisoning her in a hotel room," Sulaimani's police department said in a statement.

Forty five women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2021, up from 25 the previous year, AFP reported in March.

At least 11 women were killed across the Region in the first two months of the year.

Last month, a 20-year-old social media figure was killed in Erbil. Her uncle and brother were arrested in relation to her death.

The increase of women killings comes despite the Kurdistan Region’s efforts to end gender-based violence and so-called honor killings.

“We must bolster efforts to challenge the toxic masculinity and patriarchal social norms that continue to result in violence. Together we must advocate for the prosecution of perpetrators and the strengthening of the Kurdistan Region Law to Combat Domestic Violence,” read a February statement from the Erbil-based NGO SEED Foundation, which works to promote social, educational and economic development.

In December, the Region launched an app to tackle violence against women. It also set up a support hotline for victims of violence in 2018, about seven years after the Kurdistan Regional Government passed its Combating Domestic Violence Law, criminalizing domestic violence and equipping the directorate to combat violence by investigating it.

Additional reporting by Dilan Sirwan

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