Not a day passes by without hearing about the death of a woman or the suicide of another, whether by self immolation or other methods. These women resort to suicide to save themselves from squalid living conditions, to wash away shame or as a result of the customs and traditions prevailing in the province and by which Kurdish society still abides.
Perhaps the most prominent of these cases is what was published on July 11 in Kurdish media outlets about the bodies of a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy found near a village in Sulaimaniyah. The young couple had been shot by their parents for having fled their homes, following the disclosure of their whirlwind romance. The two youngsters had decided to escape and get married despite the their parents' objection.