JINHA

HEWLER – In Southern Kurdistan, health officials say that the epidemic of women committing suicide is on the rise.

Reports from the government of the Federal Kurdistan Region point to a troubling rise in femicides in the Soran region, near the city of Hewler (Erbil). Most recently, a 17-year-old girl committed suicide through an overdose of medicine on April 18. Recent months have seen women's suicides across the region, with theincrease coming at the same time as a reported increase in violence against women indicating that these suicides are not coincidences, but part of a broader range of femicide and violence against women.

Mina Taha, a health official in Southern Kurdistan, says the 17-year-old woman who overdosed this week was brought to the hospital in Soran, but could not be saved. Three young women recently tried to commit suicide in the same way, which Mina says is becoming more common in the region.

Local journalist Hejar Ibrahim says that women's organizations and human rights organizations in the region are not sufficiently organized to take actions that would stop the wave of women's suicides. Although grassroots protest is growing, calling on groups to step forward with a solution to the women's suicides, women's groups have not taken the concrete measures women are demanding.

"They're not at the level of being able to show women a way out [of their problems]," she said. "They just open sewing courses for women; it's not enough. Women's rights need to be defended."

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