KRG looks to enhance protection of women, children
Kurdish activists and government agencies have submitted draft laws to amend the law on domestic violence but critics question whether it will be enforced.
ERBIL — Activists and government agencies in Iraqi Kurdistan have drafted amendments over the past few months to the autonomous region’s existing law combating domestic violence, introducing measures aimed at better protection of women's and children's rights.
Kurdish parliamentarians will convene with the sponsors of the two drafts next week to possibly merge them into one and then introduce them on the floor of parliament, according to Kajal Hadi Faqe, a member of Iraqi Kurdistan parliament's women affairs committee.
The major draft was prepared by the Middle East Research Institute (MERI), a think tank based in Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil, in partnership with the Kurdish government’s Ministry of Interior.
It includes provisions that protect women from undergoing baby gender tests, and being divorced or forced to abort the fetus in case it is not a boy. In Kurdistan's largely conservative society, some families still maintain a preference for male children.
