Kawthar Bashar Al-Husaidawi attempt to escape violence and a forced marriage ended with her murder. They had killed her with ten bullets and split her small head with an axe. Horrified by the recent murder of Kawthar al-Husayjawi, one of her female relatives describes what happened. A frightening testimony obtained from within the family.
BAGHDAD JUNE 4: Kawthar al-Husayjawi from Iraq was forced into a marriage with an older man at the age of 13. After being subjected to violence, she eventually managed to get a divorce. But her freedom was short-lived. Kawthar Bashar Al-Husaidawi attempt to escape violence and a forced marriage ended with her murder in the hills of Al-Nahrawan.
Kawthar’s fate is not an isolated tragedy. It is a brutal example of how honor killings, child marriage and forced marriage rob girls of their freedom, safety and, in the worst case, their lives.
The Testimony
The men of my tribe [extended family with shared ancestry] threw my relative Kawthar Bashar Al-Husaidawi, 15, into a pit and put a little dirt over her body after they had killed her hours earlier with ten bullets and split her small head with an axe. My family then joined others in coming onto the streets to dance and celebrate her death.
Kawthar lived in Al-Nahrawan, a district southeast of Baghdad. She had been taken out of school and at age 13, forced to marry a man who was an alcohol addict.
She was subjected to a year of violence and mistreatment before fleeing back to her family who initially subjected her to house arrest and constant pressure to return to her husband and abuser. She threatened to end her life and, eventually, was officially divorced in court 9 months ago.
Soon after her cousin was released from prison and asked Kawthar’s parents for her hand in marriage. Kawthar refused as everyone knew the groom was involved in the trade of drugs and alcohol. Her family ignored her and gave their approval. The idea that ‘a man’s word is not broken by a girl’; that a girl’s refusal could not overturn a man’s decision, is so deeply ingrained within society that even her mother and the other women in the family could not join her in saying “no.”
As the day of the wedding and a new chapter of rape and violence grew closer, Kawthar left the family home in early May. She had been denied the chance to go to school or learn how to earn money, so left home with nothing except her ordinary house clothes and a head covering.
After fleeing home, she was spotted by a nearby resident who abducted her for three days and, she says, subjected her to even worse abuse that she did not disclose. Although she assured her family that she had not absconded with him willingly – and even after surveillance cameras appeared to support her account of how she was dragged by force – her family refused to believe her.
Kawthar’s father, uncle and fiancé interrogated her about what had happened during those three days before taking her to an open area on the outskirts of Baghdad, in the hills of Al-Nahrawan. Inside a car with three men from the family that were supposed to be her circle of safety, I have tried to imagine what she was feeling. Did they tell her fate? What were her last pleas? Was she screaming, hoping their consciences would awaken? Or did she wonder how her father could do this to his daughter?
On social media, I saw her childlike face, the last time she wore her school uniform. An old picture that doesn’t show all her beautiful features. Videos soon spread of members of the tribe dancing happily at her murder. I did not see anyone grieving within the family. On the contrary, the men were celebrating.
When I heard the news, I was at home on a normal afternoon, until my father came in carrying the news of her disappearance and then her murder. If I had heard this story from a stranger, in a post on Instagram, I probably would have denied it. How can a person carry all this ugliness in their heart and inflict it upon their daughter? But it happened here to a girl I know and once sat with.
I tried to remain calm and thought that at least the police would punish them for their deed, that they would be held accountable for what they had done to Kawther. Instead, an officer allegedly asked for a bribe to say she had been kidnapped and not killed. The men moved Kawthar’s body more than once out of fear. A body with ten bullets and without a shroud or ritual washing, passed between holes. If the living has no humanity, where is the sanctity of the dead?
In the end, this is what pushed me to speak. The women in the extended family were not coordinating or acting in concert; we were scattered by fear, each of us wary of who could be trusted and what might happen if we spoke. Despite that some of us began sending her name and photo, and the pictures of her killers to media pages and platforms hoping for justice for this child and allow her to at least be buried with dignity. I was afraid that the case would be buried like the hundreds of other stories in which women and young girls die for nothing more than trying to survive.
What terrifies me most is how easy murder has become for men in Iraq. They no longer fear the law or the state, because they see corruption everywhere. Everyone concealed what happened. Apparently, a lawyer will take on the case, the body will be located, and her brother will turn himself in as the sole perpetrator so that the case will be closed as an ‘honour killing’.
Although Iraqi law does not directly mention the phrase “honour killing”, there are mitigating excuses in Article 409 of Iraq’s Penal Code, which address the crime of killing motivated by honour. Someone finding his wife or close female relative in act of adultery and killing them shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years. In many cases, the crime is not viewed as a deliberate, fully constituted murder, but rather as a family incident that got out of control.
Iraq’s Jaafari Personal Status Code permitting children as young as nine years old to marry, is terrifying to me, because a child pulled out of school and pushed into early marriage becomes more vulnerable and less able to protect herself or object to the violence she is subjected to. Kawthar had not yet reached the age that allows her to understand life at all, yet everyone was treating her as a woman who must be subdued, monitored, and punished.
With courtesy of: Jummar Media
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