Kirkuk Police: Man sets wife on fire

Kirkuk 2019: temporary security checkpoint downtown. Photo by Kirkuk Police media.

Goran Baban, Kirkuk

A 28-year-old woman said that her husband burnt her and fled away, Kirkuk police told KirkukNow.

The wife is in Azadi public hospital receiving medical treatment. "Once we were informed, we went to the hospital and registered her statement," said Yousif Mohammed, Domiz Police Station manager.

Mohammed said that the wife claims they had quarrel on Wednesday and on Thursday again they exchanged verbal abuse. "The woman said my husband set fire to me due to domestic issue."

The woman is in a stable health conditions and passed risky stages yet the husband managed to escape, he added. The woman is determined to file a lawsuit against her husband.

According to statistics by department of women and children protection of Kirkuk police, over 200 cases of domestic and intra family violence has been registered since February 2020, the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in Iraq. Out of 65 cases of suicide in 2020, 50 casualties were women, registered by Kirkuk office of the high commission for human rights in Iraq.

The incidents go along with the efforts to endorse a draft by Iraqi government to the parliament to counter domestic violence in order to limit the social phenomenon which sharply increased following Corona virus outbreal all over the world.

End of last January, a young man blazed two of his sisters in Rahimawa predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of Kirkuk. He was arrested and the case transferred to court.

In a follow up by KirkukNow in May 202, women organizations said that suicide, murder and physical abuse of women escalated in March and April 202 due to lockdown and unemployment of men, forcibly spending most of the time at home.

The United Nations UN in Iraq said in a statement last April it was concerned about spike of cases of social violence such as abuse by husband, setting wives on fire and women self immolation, self injury, sexual abuse against teenagers and women suicide.

One of the side effects of Covid-19 pandemic is that it has provided a ground for increase in domestic violence, making intimate partner more common and more severe.  

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