Every year, hundreds of Kurdish women commit suicide, most commonly by burning themselves to death, in Kurdistan. What are the reasons why so many young women chose such a painful and dramatic way to end their lives, ask freelance journalist Abdollah Hejab and Liv Kjølseth, right, of the Norwegian Council or the Rights of the Kurds. (15-MAR-06)

This article was first published in the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet, 13 November 2005. It has been translated and edited for republication here by HRH / Niels Jacob Harbitz. Picture of Liv Kjølseth: Bård Brinchmann Løvvig.

A lake, late at night. A skinny woman, almost like a little girl, moves slowly into the water. Halfway into it, she pours petrol over herself. But the match won´t light.

Only in Iraqi Kurdistan, only in 2001 …
The scene is taken from the movie ´Turtles can fly´. In a glimpse, the director Bahman Ghobadi touches upon a severe problem that has been paid only very limited attention: The fact that every year, several hundred women set themselves on fire, determined to die from their burns, and all in the Kurdish areas of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The full extent of this phenomenon remains unknown, but Ronak Faraj Rahim at the Kurdish non-governmental organisation Women´s Media and Education Centre has registered that only in Iraqi Kurdistan, and only in 2001, 245 women committed suicide this way.

The child she never wanted
The story in ´Turtles can fly´ takes place in a refugee camp in the Kurdish parts of Iraq in the days leading up to the American invasion. The main characters of the movie are children without arms and legs. Hence, the impact of landmines as a weapon in war is visualised in all its cruelty. The Kurdish parts of Iraq are among the most densely mine-laid in the world, and the actors are most likely genuine victims. The story of the girl called Agrin i gradually uncovered. The little blind boy one initially assumes is her brother turns out to be the child she has had to carry after being raped by soldiers. Agrin struggles to live with the burden of raring a child she never wanted. In the course of the film, she makes not just the one, but two suicide attempts.

-None of your business
Despite the fact that suicide through self-burning has become quite a common ´solution´ to the problems many young Kurdish women suffer, the authorities of the countries between which Kurdistan is split have so far managed to silence any and all attempts to generate attention and do something about it. Even so, in Turkey and Iraq, Kurdish women´s organisations have initiated a wider survey, and independent journals have begun writing about it. At this stage, though, both societal taboos and the authorites´ restrictions against data collection on social and political issues in the Kurdish areas, have made further inquiries difficult.

-Not just culture. This is politics
For these reasons, the question remains? Why are Kurdish women doing this? It is well-established fact that Kurdish societies are marked by a combination of a strong tribal mentality and patriarchical conceptions of honour. Even so, it would be misleading to ascribe the problem of suicidal self-burning among women as purely a culturally explainable phenomenon. The current political situation in the Kurdish areas also needs to be taken into account.

-Zero protection, girls. That´s for your men to handle
Discrimination against and abuse of women happens everywhere, in all societies and cultures, but when women are discriminated against also on ethnic and religious grounds (and not ´only´ because they are women), the problem grows both in complexity and extent. The Constitutions of Iran, Syria (and Iraq), and also the established norm in Turkey provides no particular protection for women. On the contrary, control over women is left to each (male) individual and local community´s practicing of traditional norms, in turn all based on deeply discriminating mechanisms.

Both external and internal discrimination
With the exception of recent year´s development in Iraq, Kurds have had no say in the lawmaking processes of the countries where they live, let alone been allowed to develop their own national laws, societal order or political institutions. At the same time, Kurds do not accept the existing poltical systems of Turkey, Iran or Syria as representative and accommodating of their particular needs and interests. Given this impasse, the clan- and tribe-based traditions remain strong throughout large parts of Kurdistan. Internal social relations are marked through and through by these age-old norms. As a consequence, women´s rights and liberties remain heavily restricted. Women are discriminated against in the private sphere, through family and clan relations, and in the public realm, through the laws and practices of the state.

One possible explanation
In Turkey, women have systematically been subjected to abuse by the ethnically Kurd military / paramilitary ´village guardians,´ and the Turk police and security forces. The former are recruited, voluntarily or not, to fight the Kurdish liberation movement. The system of village guardians was established all the way back in 1924, and Kurdish civilians have always been vulnerable to the authority these guardians exercise. Kurdish women´s organisations are convinced that the traumas caused by rape and sexual harassment and torture have, at least in some cases, lead to the kind of suicide problemtaised here.
   
-Try looking a man in the eye. Suffer the consequences
In Iran, it is a strict interpretation of the country´s self-imposed sharia laws that defines women´s rights and liberties. The country upholds a high degree of segregation between the sexes, and every woman is herself responsible for the protection of her purity and dignity. Exchanged in public, a discreet sign of appreciation between a woman and a man is sufficient grounds for public persecution. And women´s violations of moral laws are consequently punished the hardest. Sexual relations out of wedlock, infidelity and prostitution can lead to stoning, lashing or even execution.

-Paid work? No way, not for a woman, widow or not
In Iraq, women was particularly hard hit by the former dictator Saddam Hussein´s gross violations of the country´s Kurdish population. As becomes clear in ´Turtles can fy´, many women were raped and harassed also in other ways by soldiers. Even today, 18 years after the chemical attacks on Kurdish villages in the north of Iraq, children are born with various kinds of handicaps, most likely caused by the poisoning of their parents. Lots of men died or disappeared. Women were widowed and left to raise their families on their own, in a society that didn´t accommodate paid work for women.

From citizen to alien
In 1962, more than 120.000 Syrian Kurds lost their citizenship and were instead attributed the status of aliens (ajnabi). Today, this number has grown to somewhere between 200.000 and 360.000. This large amount of people are without live and die without any kind of identity papers or property rights, and do not have access to any kind of education beyond the basic, compulsory levels. Stateless Kurdish women have very limited possibilities to find paid work. A complex system of laws prohibits a person without citizen´s rights from marrying someone with such rights. Unregistered marriages occur, but the women of these marriages enjoy no widow´s rights and can claim no compensation if subjected to violence or other kinds of harassment.

No way out
Traditionally, Kurdish women´s role and position in society was more free and independent than that of women in the surrounding societies. Today, this has changed, and Kurdish women suffer under their male counterparts´ and entire societies´ need for control. Everything, from the freedom of movement outside of home, to the choice of husband, is decided by the family. Only a very few women have the opportunity to support and decide for themselves. Violence and force are both actively in use to control women´s behaviour, and protection against abuse is only scantily provided by the authorities at any level. Young girls, down to the age of 13, are married off without consent, but with the long established accept of both laws and religious practices. Without any kind of public support, for instance in the form of crisis centres working to protect women under threat, women see no way out of their various predicaments.

No freedoms available
Agrin´s story, as told in ´Turtles can fly,´ has, if only in a short glimpse, opened up to an otherwise tragically tabooed phenomenon. The Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi has addressed a problem in his own societ that demands the attention, also of the international society. The authorities in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey must contribute to securing women a greater degree of freedom and influence over their own lives. The freedom to take one´s own life should not be about the only freedom any woman has, anywhere. In fact, this is not a freedom at all, but a desperate measure, in a society where no freedom exist, where no other option seems available, where no other way out is open.