Two suspects arrested in Sulaimani for torturing girl to death

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Sulaimani police said Monday that they have arrested a man and a woman, accused of torturing a girl, who is their relative, to death.

“Police investigations revealed that the murdered girl was a relative of the suspects and visited the suspects' house, but they later confined her and tortured her until she passed away,” according to a statement from the Sulaimani police directorate.

The suspects, born in 1989 and 1987, remain in custody for further investigation, the statement added.

There have been no official comments from security forces and relevant authorities on the killing as of the time of this writing.

The Kurdistan Region and Iraq suffer from high rates of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, domestic violence, so-called honor killings, child marriages, and female genital mutilation.

In November, Sulaimani's police said that a brother killed two of his sisters in their house.

At least 30 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2023, according to the Region’s Combatting Violence against Women Directorate. In 2022, the Region reported its highest femicide rate in years, with at least 44 women killed.

Femicides in the Kurdistan Region are often linked with the terms “social dispute” and “honor killings,” which perpetrators use to justify murdering their mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives.

In December 2021, the Kurdistan 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 (KRG) passed its Combating Domestic Violence Law, criminalizing domestic violence and equipping the directorate to combat violence by investigating it.