Killings of women in Iran: at least 15 women and girls killed since late September

At least 15 women and girls have been killed in various Iranian cities since the start of Mehr 1405 (23 September 2026). The Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), publishing these figures on Sunday 18 October, said that in most of these cases the husband, brother, son or another male member of the family is the main suspect.

According to HRANA, the killings took place in Isfahan, Dehloran, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Qeshm, Saravan, Tehran, Bam, Bakharz and Shahroud, and the reasons given include family disputes, divorce requests, suspicion, financial disputes and so-called "honour" motives.

From Saravan to Bakharz

Mahsa Bozorgzadeh, a young woman and mother of one in Saravan, who had separated from her husband and lived with her mother, was set on fire with petrol in the street by the occupants of a car on 10 October and died in hospital the next day. In Bakharz in Razavi Khorasan, Yeganeh Hosseinzaei, a 16-year-old girl who had been married off to a relative at the age of 10, was killed by her husband on 9 October.

In Dehloran, Ilam, a man of about 57 shot dead his wife Fereshteh Yousefzadeh, 38, and three of his children, Roja, 14, and Hadis and Radbin, both 9, and then killed himself. In Qeshm, Maryam Yarmohammadi, a 28-year-old mother of two, was killed by her brother on 5 October with a so-called "honour" motive. In Pardis, Kermanshah, Fatemeh Lotfi, 46, and her daughter Zahra Shahbaz, 26, were also shot dead, and the family's 18-year-old son is the main suspect.

HRANA also reported the killing of a 27-year-old woman at her workplace in Tehran's Saadi shopping arcade, the strangling of a 70-year-old woman by her husband in Majidieh, Tehran, the killing of Mina Soltani, 40, by her husband in Isfahan, and two separate killings in Tabriz.

At least 15 women and girls were killed in Iran in less than a month alone, most of them by men of their own families.

A law that does not protect women

Women in Iran face laws that do not protect them from domestic violence: the Islamic Penal Code does not provide for retribution (qisas) against a father who kills his child, and the marriage of girls from the age of 13, and earlier with the permission of the father and the court, is legal. Meanwhile, state bodies have concentrated on controlling women's dress, and the Assembly of Experts this week called for firm enforcement of mandatory hijab.