Two Kurdish women, Kosar Darabi and Zahra Shahbazi, have been killed by their husbands in Kermanshah and Ilam, respectively, within the past week.
Darabi, an 18-year-old woman from Kermanshah, Kermanshah Province, was shot dead by her husband on 1 January.
She had reportedly been forced into marriage about two months earlier and had been severely beaten by her husband before the killing, leaving visible bruises on her body.
The murder took place on the outskirts of Kermanshah, and the perpetrator has been arrested.
In a separate incident, on 7 January, 28-year-old Shahbazi was fatally shot by her husband in Ilam, Ilam Province.
Shahbazi, a mother of two, had been living in a situation of domestic violence.
Her husband, who reportedly struggled with addiction, fled the scene of the crime and remains at large.
These incidents follow another femicide that occurred on 25 December 2024 in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, where Ghazaleh Hodoudi, a 28-year-old mother of one, was set on fire by a suitor in her tailoring shop and died of her injuries in hospital two days later.
Hodoudi’s murder was reportedly motivated by her refusal of the suitor’s marriage proposal.
On 5 January, Kurdish women activists, accompanied by male allies, held a demonstration at the scene of Hodoudi’s murder in Sanandaj.
Carrying placards with slogans such as “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Women, Life, Freedom), the demonstrators issued a statement condemning the ongoing violence and femicide against women.
