TOGoli Kouhkan was 12 years old when she was married off to a cousin. She was 13 years old when she got pregnant: she gave birth to a boy. She was 18 when she was arrested for her husband’s death in May 2018. Noand he is 25 now, and has been on death row in Gorgan Central Prison for seven years, in northern Iran. The only way to escape execution is to pay qisas – a remuneration in kind – to compensate the family. The price of blood is 10 billion tomans, 100 thousand euros, and the deadline is December.
Iran, Goli Kouhkan, the former child bride who risks the gallows if she does not pay “the blood price”
The case of Goli Kouhkan is emblematic of how women are treated in Iran, including early marriages and the absence of legal protections against domestic violence. Not only that. As Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam of Iran Human Rights (IHR) explains, interviewed by the Guardian «Kouhkan belongs to an ethnic minorityshe is a woman and she is poor. It is probably the weakest of all in Iranian society,” he said. The girl is in fact one Baluch, one of the most marginalized communities in the country, which represents approximately 2% of the population. Being an illegal minority, they have no official identity documents.
Sentenced to death for the murder of her violent husband
Tell the Guardian That on the day her husband was killed, Kouhkan had found him beating her sonwho was five years old at the time. He called a cousin for help. Upon his arrival, a fight broke out which resulted in the man’s death. Kouhkan called an ambulance and told the authorities what had happened. Both she and her cousin were arrested.
During the interrogation, without a lawyer present and under pressure, Kouhkan signed a confession, despite being illiterate. The judges issued a sentenced to death by hanging towards him. But according to Iranian law, the victim’s family can forgive her in exchange for blood moneycompensation due in the event of murder or personal injury.
He could therefore regain his freedom on the condition that he pays 10 billion tomans and leaves the city of Gorgan. It is unlikely that she will be allowed to have contact with her sonwho is now 11 years old and is being raised by his paternal grandparents.
A protest against the death penalty in Iran at the Esplanade des Invalides, Paris. Protesters denounce over 1,145 executions since Iranian regime President Massoud Pezeshkian took office in July 2024, chanting slogans against the dictatorship of the mullahs and the fallen monarchy (Photo by Siavosh Hosseini/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Iran, the death penalty for women
According to available data, Iran is the country with the highest number of executions of women in the world. In 2024, at least 31 women were executed for drug, murder and security-related crimes, the highest number of executions of women recorded in over 15 years. At least 30 women have been executed so far in 2025.
In 2024, at least 419 people, including one minor and 19 women, were executed for murder, the highest number of executions since 2010, according to the IHR. Only 12% of recorded executions were announced by official sources. In 2024, there were 649 cases of families choosing diya, or forgiveness, over execution.
Fundraising to save the life of Goli Kouhkan
There Qasim Child Foundationan Australian registered charity that has supported similar causes in the past, has started a fundraising campaign (here And here are the links to participate).
Early marriage and domestic violence: the precedents
Kouhkan’s case follows that of Samira Sabzian Fard, who in December 2023 was sentenced to death by a Tehran court under the qisas principle in connection with the murder of the man she was forced to marry when she was 15.
But also that of Fatemeh Salbehi, arrested for the murder of her much older husband in 2008, aged 17. She was interrogated without the presence of a lawyer. After initially confessing to the murder, he later declared that the killers were two men who had forced their way into the family home.
Still. In 2012, Zeinab Sekaanvand she was 17 when she was arrested for the murder of her husband, whom she had married at 15. During interrogation he confessed to having stabbed him after months of physical and verbal abuse. She later recanted and told the judge that the murder had been committed by her brother-in-law, who she said had raped her several times.
In all three cases, the women were executed.