A child bride who was due to be executed this month in Iran over the death of her husband has had her life spared by his parents, who were paid the equivalent of £70,000 in exchange for their forgiveness.
Goli Kouhkan, 25, has been on death row in Gorgan central prison in northern Iran for the past seven years. At the age of 18 she was arrested over allegedly participating in the killing of her abusive husband, Alireza Abil, in May 2018, and sentenced to qisas – retribution-in-kind.
Mai Sato, UN special rapporteur on the situation for human rights in Iran, said: “It’s great that Kouhkan won’t be executed – one life has been saved … but it doesn’t really solve the issue of the qisas law, which is in violation of many international standards.” Sato, along with three other UN experts, said earlier this month that the case “exemplifies the systemic gender bias faced by women victims of child marriage and domestic violence within Iran’s criminal justice system”.
In November, the Guardian was the first international publication to reveal that Kouhkan, an undocumented member of Iran’s Baluch minority, would face execution by hanging unless she could raise 10bn tomans (about £80,000) to pay off the victim’s family. Under Iranian law, a victim’s family can pardon someone in return for blood money – compensation payable in cases of murder or bodily harm.
In a statement issued last month, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, said: “The blood-money amount set for her case is several times the official rate, an impossible sum for a young, undocumented Baluch woman from a deprived background who has also been rejected by her family.”
Forced to marry her cousin at 12, Kouhkan became pregnant at 13 and gave birth to a son. She suffered physical and emotional abuse for years. On the day her husband was killed, Kouhkan found him beating their son, then aged five. She called her husband’s cousin, Mohammad Abil, for help. When he arrived a fight broke out which resulted in the death of her husband. According to Iran Human Rights, Abil remains on death row.
Kouhkan’s lawyer confirmed in a post on Instagram on 9 December that the original sum of 10bn tomans had been reduced to 8bn tomans and that amount had been raised through donations. In a video published by Mizan News Agency, Kouhkan’s parents-in-law are seen signing documents.
Kouhkan hopes to be reunited with her son when she is released, according to Mehdi Ghatei, founder of Qasim Child Foundation, a charity registered in Australia, who had started a fundraiser for Kouhkan. In accordance with Iranian law, Kouhkan’s son is entitled to 2bn tomans of the total blood money, which is “a good sum for establishing a new life”, he said.
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Ghatei said he had been contacted by organisations and individuals all over the world after the Guardian’s story about Kouhkan and that international pressure had played a part in saving her life. “The Iranian regime tries to keep people silent,” he said. “When people start raising awareness [of cases such as Kouhkan’s] there is sometimes huge pressure from international bodies, which increases the chances of halting executions. The role of the mainstream media is huge in this case, unbelievable.”
At least 241 women were executed in Iran between 2010 and 2024, 114 of whom were sentenced to qisas for homicide. The majority of women executed for homicide in the documented cases had killed their husband or intimate partner. Many of these women were victims of domestic violence or child marriage, or acted in self-defence.
Iran executes the highest number of women in the world, according to available data. Amnesty International said that at least 30 women were executed in the country last year. At least 42 women have been executed in 2025 so far – 18 for murdering their husbands, including two child brides, according to Iran Human Rights.
