A victim of child marriage may be executed by the Islamic Regime after authorities claim she played a role in the death of her abusive husband in May 2018, according to human rights activists and international media reports.
Goli Kouhkan, now 25, will be executed unless she can raise 10bn tomans (approximately NIS 342,000) in blood money to the family of her deceased husband, whom she was forced to marry at 12 years old.
Kouhkan had called for help from a relative when she witnessed her husband beating her five-year-old son, which led to a fight and his death.
Held on death row in Gorgan central prison for the last seven years, since her husband’s death when she was only 18, the case has been widely condemned by human rights groups.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, from the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) organization, shared, “Kouhkan belongs to an ethnic minority, she’s a woman, and she is poor. She is probably the absolute weakest in Iranian society…Her sentence is symbolic of Iranian authorities’ use of the death penalty to create fear, and the discriminatory laws and societal factors that have led to this situation.”
It was reported that Koukhan was forced to sign a confession, despite being illiterate, by authorities without a lawyer present.
Goli Kouhkan’s forced marriage as a 12-year-old
Not even a teenager, Kouhkan was made to marry her cousin and gave birth to a son a year later, according to the Guardian.
Born to a member of the ethnic minority group Baluch, which makes up less than 2% of Iran’s population, she has no identity papers.
Ziba Baktyari, a member of the women’s advocacy organization Brashm, told the Guardian, “Kouhkan is not one single case…Baluch women, and women generally, are targeted by the regime. No one knows about them, no one cares about them, and their voices are not heard. Women don’t have rights; they have to obey their husbands and are kept away from school. Families marry off girls because of poverty; they cannot provide for them.”
After her marriage became both physically and emotionally abusive, Koukhan escaped to her family’s house to ask for help but was reportedly told by her father, “I gave my daughter away in a white dress, the only way you can return [is wrapped in a shroud].”
An informed source told IHRNGO: “Goli was 12 when she was forced to marry her cousin. A year later, she gave birth to a son at home without medical care. While pregnant, she was forced to do heavy farm and housework and consistently subjected to physical violence at the hands of her husband, who also cut her contact with her family and friends. Every attempt to leave had been unsuccessful due to both her undocumented status and societal factors.”
A source told IranWire that much of the abuse happened after she refused to become pregnant again, as she nearly died during the birth of her son. Her young age and small frame meant that her pelvis struggled during labor, the source said.
Executions in Iran
If Kouhkan pays her husband’s family, she will be expelled from her city, and it is unlikely that she will be allowed custody or contact with her 11-year-old son.
The #گلی کوهکن (#SaviGoli) campaign has been started to help her raise the necessary funds to avoid state murder. She has until December to pay the total sum.
This year, Tehran has set a new record in state executions, exceeding over a thousand in the first nine months of the year alone, reaching a three-decade peak.
The executions, mostly hangings, toppled the previous figure of 975 state murders in 2024 and the record in 2015.