COMMUNISTS marked the 70th anniversary of the Kurdistan Women’s League yesterday, blaming Iraqi Kurdistan’s government for a sharp rise in femicide in the region.

The establishment of the women’s section of the Kurdistan Communist Party-Iraq was hailed as a major step in the struggle to transform a predominantly patriarchal society.

In Slemani, the party paid tribute to “all the brave women who have struggled in the past” against injustice and inequality.

The anniversary came hard on the heels of International Working Women’s Day, when the communists highlighted a rise in murders of women in Iraqi Kurdistan – 10 have been killed in the last two months.

The Kurdistan Communist Party–Iraq has been central to the struggle for women’s rights and an end to femicide in northern Iraq.

It accuses the Kurdistan Regional Government, the state and the region’s political parties of failing to secure justice for the “daily abuses, terror and dozens of burnings and attacks” suffered by women.

In 2008, Kurdistan Women’s League leader Nahla Hussain was beheaded when gunmen stormed her home in volatile province of Kirkuk. 

No-one has been held accountable for her brutal murder.

Many perpetrators of femicide remain shielded from prosecution, creating a culture of impunity. 

The latest killing occurred in Erbil on Sunday, when the body of social media activist Iman Sami Maghdid, also known as Maria, was found dumped on the side of a road in the regional capital.

Police arrested her uncle the following day in connection with the murder and are continuing to search for her 17-year-old brother, who is suspected of carrying out the killing.

According to the Anti-Violence Directorate in Iraqi Kurdistan, at least 171 women died in 2021, 61 by suicide and 86 by self-immolation, but the true numbers are believed to be higher.