A 22-year-old girl committed suicide by hanging inside her house in the city of Kirkuk, protesting forced marriage, police and some neighbors said.
On the morning of Sunday, September 4, the girl's body was transferred from her home in Panja Ali neighborhood to Azadi Hospital in Kirkuk to verify the causes of death.
A security source in the Kirkuk police said in a statement to KirkukNow, "The Azadi Hospital police informed us that the body of that girl was transferred to the hospital, and our follow-up showed that she committed suicide by hanging inside her house," a source at Kirkuk police anonymously said.
"Initial information indicates that the girl was opposing her forced marriage by her family," the source added.
That girl was engaged several months ago to a Kurdish man who resides Germany, and they were planning to hold their wedding next week.
Muhammad Shiwani, one of the neighbors of the girl, who according to him was close to the family, said, "That girl was living with her mother and aunt, and she was a quiet girl, her wedding was scheduled to take place next week, but unfortunately this morning Today, she committed suicide in her home.”
(KirkukNow) was unable to verify whether the victim's mother and aunt were at home while she was "hanging herself."
"Some of the neighbors were aware that this girl had been against this marriage from the beginning," Shiwani added.
Early and forced marriage are among the violations that girls are subjected to in Iraq, and most of these marriages end in divorce, violence, and sometimes suicide.
The past two years witnessed 4,000 divorce cases for women under the age of fifteen in Iraq, most of them were in Mosul, while Kirkuk came among the provinces that witnessed the registration of the least number of divorce cases.
About the violations committed against women, Almas Hussein, the activist in the field of defending women’s rights, says, “This story is not the first and it will not be the last. Stories similar to this are many, but they are hidden. We hope that civil society organizations and clerics will stand on their podiums on the issue of the increase in divorce cases and factors behind it in order to reduce cases of domestic violence and violations.”
"Here are many cases where engagement and marriage end in divorce after a few weeks, and the reason behind this is forced and early marriage," she added.
