Condemn another hideous stoning of an 11 years old girl in Kurdistan: Sara Jaffar Nimat is an 11-year-old girl from the town of Khanaqin in Iraqi Kurdistan. She was murdered on the 3rd August.
The painful, degrading and horrific killing of Sara is another outrageous crime against young girls and women in Kurdistan. Sara was only in fifth grade at school. Loved by her friends, they played together on the night she was killed. Sara’s body was found in a nearby empty building. It had been hit by bricks, stones, and then burnt. There is not much information yet about who committed such a barbaric crime against an innocent young girl.
Killings of young girls and women in Kurdistan are rapidly rising and such killings occur even more openly than before. After the murder of Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl stoned to death in public, at least another 40 women have been killed – among them Amina, a 12 year old girl killed by her father, under the pretext that she was “in love with a neighbor”, and Sara an 11-year-old.
We have consistently demanded that the government in Kurdistan must bring to justice those responsible for these terrible murders, but it seems that compromising with tribes and war lords, and neglecting women’s rights are more high up on the agenda of the parties in power than protecting women at risk. Therefore violence against women is now targeting females who are as young as 11 years old.
This is a dangerous situation; our society is not safe for its women. Our streets, homes, and buildings, are all places which murder takes place in them. Women can no longer trust their male relatives; they fear their own fathers, brothers, and husbands. What kind of society is this if women don’t feel safe at any time or place?
We strongly condemn this horrific killings and demand immediate justice for Sara.
We call upon all of you to write letters of protest to the Kurdistan Regional Government demanding:
- Justice for Sara, Amina, Du’a and many more women and girls who have been killed.
- end to all kinds of violence against women and so called honour killings.
- recognizing women as a human being and consider equal rights for them by law.
Houzan Mahmoud
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq- Representative Abroad
