IKWRO

In Kurdistan, two arrests have been made. The husband however has returned to the United Kingdom where he continues to work and live. Shwbo's father has supplied his details to the British police but they have so far declined to take any action.

Aftermath of the public stoning of Du'a Khalil Aswad

Kurdistan has a long history of brutality and oppression against women, which reached its nadir in the public stoning death of Du'a Khalil Aswad. The fact that Shwbo's body was stoned shows that it is not only women's rights activists that remember Du'a and her fate. 

The same mobile phone footage of Du'a's tortuous murder that created a wave of revulsion across Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora created very different reaction amongst those who still cleave to a notion of 'honour' based in the subhumanity of woman and the inhumanity of man. Instead of seeing the brutality and misogyny of this attack they saw that 'honour' killing is acceptable, and that the state sides with the perpetrators unless international attention forces them to make a stand.

Since Du'a's murder and the publicity surrounding it, at least 12 women have been murdered in the name of 'honour' in Iraqi Kurdistan making Shwbo and her daughter the thirteenth and fourteenth that we know of, although as always, there may be other murders which have not come to light. And unless serious action is taken, there will be many, many more.

Situation in Kurdistan 

• In Arbil province alone 358 women have burnt themselves to death since 2003. Another 218 have tried to do so. The prime reason for this, according to the UN, is male pressure
• In 2005, 289 women committed suicide because they could find no reprieve from their problems. The number rose to 533 in 2006
• Between January and March, the UN received information on some forty cases of alleged honour crimes in Arbil, Dohuk, Sulaimaniyah and Salaheddin where young women reportedly died from accidental burns at their homes or were killed by family members for suspected immoral conduct.