CHILD BRIDE ON DEATH ROW: The Harrowing Case of Goli Kouhkan

A 25-year-old woman has until December to raise over $100,000 or face execution for a death that occurred when she was trying to protect her five-year-old son.

A woman sits in Gorgan Central Prison in northern Iran, where she has spent seven years on death row. Her life depends on a sum she cannot possibly raise. The calendar pages turn toward December 2025, and with each passing day, the deadline draws closer.

Forced Into Marriage at Twelve

Goli Kouhkan belongs to the Baluch ethnic minority, one of the most marginalized groups in Iran that makes up roughly 2% of the population. Born without official identity documents – something that would follow her throughout her life and make everything harder – she was forced into marriage with her cousin at 12 years old. Tribune OnlineInkl Twelve years old. An age when most kids are still in middle school, worried about homework and friends.
At 13, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son at home without any medical care. Iran Human Rights No hospital. No doctors. No pain medication. Just a 13-year-old girl giving birth at home.
Sources told IranWire that much of the abuse she endured intensified after she refused to become pregnant again. Her young age and small frame meant her pelvis struggled during labor, and she nearly died giving birth to her son. The trauma of that experience stayed with her, a constant reminder of how close she came to death just bringing life into the world.
Throughout her marriage, she suffered years of physical and emotional abuse. While pregnant – still just a child herself – she was forced to do heavy farm and housework and consistently subjected to physical violence at the hands of her husband. He also cut her contact with her family and friends. Tribune OnlineInkl She was completely isolated, trapped in a marriage she never chose with a man who hurt her regularly.
When she once managed to escape and ran to her parents’ home seeking help, desperately hoping they would protect her, her father told her something that sealed her fate: “I gave my daughter away in a white dress, the only way you can return is wrapped in a shroud.” Tribune Online
He was telling her she could only come home dead. Every attempt to leave after that had been unsuccessful. She had absolutely nowhere to go. No one to turn to. No escape route that didn’t end in her being dragged back to the abuse.

May 2018

On the day her husband died in May 2018, Kouhkan found him beating their five-year-old son. Tribune OnlineInkl Her little boy. The child she nearly died bringing into this world. Now watching him suffer the same violence she had endured for years.
She called a cousin for help. When he arrived, a fight broke out that resulted in her husband’s death. Tribune Online Kouhkan called an ambulance and told authorities what had happened. Inkl She didn’t run. She didn’t hide. She called for help and told the truth.
Both she and her cousin were arrested. During interrogation, without a lawyer present and under pressure, Kouhkan signed a confession despite being illiterate. Tribune OnlineInkl She couldn’t even read what she was signing. She was 18 years old – technically an adult by legal standards, but really just a teenager who had spent her entire adolescence trapped in an abusive marriage. She was sentenced to qisas, retribution-in-kind, for participation in the killing. Tribune OnlineInkl

How Iranian Law Decides Who Lives and Dies

The Iranian legal system has a particular way of handling murder cases. Under Iranian law, qisas applies in cases of intentional killing, giving the victim’s family the right to demand execution as retribution. Wikipedia The state essentially puts the decision in the hands of the deceased person’s family.
However, the family can also demand diya, known as blood money, instead of retribution, or they can simply grant forgiveness. Iran Human RightsIran Human Rights So there are three options: demand the execution, accept a financial payment, or forgive entirely.
The Head of Judiciary sets an annual indicative amount for diya based on inflation and other considerations, but the victim’s family can choose their own amount with no upper limit set. Iran Human Rights They can demand any sum they want. There’s no cap. No maximum. No threshold that protects defendants from impossible demands.
This year’s diya was set at 900 million tomans for a Muslim man and 450 million tomans for a Muslim woman. Iran Human Rights That’s the suggested amount. But families rarely stick to the suggestion. The amount demanded is usually higher – sometimes much higher.
Prison officials negotiated Kouhkan’s freedom in exchange for her leaving Gorgan and paying 10 billion tomans to her husband’s family. Inkl This amount converts to over $150,000, or approximately £80,000. NewsBytes For a woman with no identity documents, no family support, no resources – it’s an impossible sum.

Seven Years in Gorgan Central Prison

At 25 years old, Kouhkan has become the longest-serving female inmate at Amirabad Prison in Gorgan. Iranwire Seven years. She’s been locked up for seven years, from age 18 to 25. Those are supposed to be formative years – college, first jobs, figuring out who you are. Instead, she’s been on death row.
She supports herself through tailoring work inside the prison, receiving no family visits or financial support. Iranwire Remember that father who told her she could only come home dead? He meant it. No one from her family comes to see her. No one sends money. She’s completely on her own, stitching clothes to survive.
Former cellmates describe her determination to live despite her circumstances. If someone went to exercise, Kouhkan would rush to exercise too. If someone read a book, she would ask what it was about. Iranwire She’s hungry for life, for experiences, for anything that makes her feel human and connected to the world beyond her cell. She has become an avid fan of Tehran’s Esteghlal football team, watching games and following players. Iranwire These small joys – exercise, books, football matches – they’re what keep her going.
Her son, now 11 years old, is being raised by his paternal grandparents. Iranwire The family of the man she’s convicted of helping to kill. He has seen his mother only once or twice since her imprisonment. Iranwire He was five when this happened. Now he’s 11. He’s growing up without her, barely knowing her. And even if she somehow raises the blood money payment, she will likely be barred from contacting him. The negotiated deal requires her to leave the city, and there’s no provision for custody or visitation rights.
In an audio message smuggled from prison, she pleads with Iranians for help, saying she “cannot leave this prison alone.” She acknowledges making a “mistake in her youth” but emphasizes her remorse and desire to live. Iranwire Her voice, somehow recorded and passed along outside the prison walls, carries both desperation and hope.

Not an Isolated Case

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam from Iran Human Rights stated that Kouhkan belongs to an ethnic minority, is a woman, and is poor, making her probably the absolute weakest in Iranian society. K24 DigitalTribune Online She hits every category of vulnerability. Her sentence is symbolic of Iranian authorities’ use of the death penalty to create fear, and the discriminatory laws and societal factors that led to this situation. K24 DigitalTribune Online
Ziba Baktyari, a member of Bramsh, an organization that advocates for the rights of women from Balochistan, said Kouhkan is not one single case. Tribune OnlineInkl This isn’t some isolated tragedy. 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. Tribune OnlineInkl
The marriage itself – forcing a 12-year-old into marriage – that’s legal in Iran. By law in Iran, a girl as young as 13 years can marry, while girls even younger can legally marry with judicial and paternal consent. OHCHR So technically, Kouhkan’s marriage at 12 was within the bounds of the law. The system that now threatens to execute her is the same system that allowed her to be married off as a child.
A UN expert reported to the Human Rights Council that thousands of marriages of girls aged between 10 and 14 occur each year in Iran, citing continuing entrenched discrimination in law and practice. OHCHR Thousands. Every single year. Girls being married off before they’ve even reached their teenage years, locked into relationships they didn’t choose with men who often abuse them.
Kouhkan’s story isn’t unique. Her case comes after that of Samira Sabzian Fard, who in December 2023 was sentenced to death by a Tehran court under the principle of qisas in relation to the murder of the man she was forced to marry when she was 15. Inkl Another child bride. Another death sentence. Another woman trapped in the same cycle.
Fatemeh Salbehi was arrested for the murder of her much older husband in 2008, aged 17. She was interrogated without the presence of a lawyer. Inkl Child marriage. Abuse. A dead husband. Interrogation without legal representation. Death sentence.
In 2012, Zeinab Sekaanvand was 17 when she was arrested for the murder of her husband, whom she married at 15. During interrogation she confessed to stabbing her husband after he had subjected her to months of physical and verbal abuse. Inkl The same pattern repeating. These women aren’t outliers. They’re examples of a system that legally allows child marriage, provides little protection from domestic violence, and then punishes women who fight back against their abusers.

Iran’s Execution Numbers

Iran executes the highest number of women globally, according to available data. In 2024, at least 31 women were executed for drug-related, murder and security-related offenses in Iran, the highest number of recorded executions of women in more than 15 years. Tribune OnlineInkl At least 30 women have been executed in 2025 so far. UNNInkl
In 2024, at least 419 people, including a juvenile offender and 19 women, were executed for murder charges, the highest number of executions since 2010, according to Iran Human Rights. InklIran Human Rights Only 12% of the recorded executions were announced by official sources. Inkl The government doesn’t even publicly acknowledge most of these executions. They happen quietly, unreported, as if these lives never mattered.
This year, Tehran has set a new record in state executions, exceeding over a thousand in the first nine months of 2025 alone, reaching a three-decade peak. The executions, mostly hangings, toppled the previous figure of 975 in 2024 and the record set in 2015.
There is a counterbalance, though it’s often inadequate. In 2024, there were 649 cases of families choosing diya, or forgiveness, instead of execution. UNNInkl So some families do choose mercy. Some families accept the blood money or simply forgive. But many defendants cannot afford the blood money demanded.
Mohammad Bameri, a Baluch man sentenced to qisas, was executed in Iranshahr Prison on May 14, 2022 after failing to pay the 1 billion tomans demanded by the victim’s family. Iran Human Rights Another Baluch person. Another impossible sum. Another execution carried out because someone couldn’t afford to buy their own life back.

The Baluch Community’s Struggle

Understanding Kouhkan’s case requires understanding the particular discrimination faced by Iran’s Baluch population. Iran’s Baluch citizens, who mainly reside in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, face numerous discriminatory practices and human rights violations. Iranhrdc It’s not just gender discrimination. It’s ethnic discrimination layered on top of religious discrimination.
As Sunni Muslims, Baluch Iranians are both an ethnic and religious minority in the majority-Shia country. Iran’s Constitution declares Shia Islam as the official state religion and Iran’s Supreme Leader and President must be Shia males. Iranhrdc The highest offices in the land are legally closed to Sunnis. But the discrimination goes deeper than constitutional requirements.
Although no explicit ban exists for other senior government positions, no Sunni individual is serving as either a cabinet level minister or a provincial governor. Iranhrdc Not one. The absence of explicit discrimination in the law doesn’t translate to actual equality in practice. Sistan and Baluchistan is one of the least developed provinces in Iran. Iranhrdc The infrastructure is worse. The resources are scarce. The opportunities are limited.
Then there’s the statelessness issue. The exact number of stateless children in Iran is not known, but an official with Iran’s Ministry of Welfare stated that self-reporting by Iranian women has shown that there are more than 49,000 stateless children in Iran. Iranhrdc That’s the self-reported number. The actual figure is likely much higher. Being stateless means no identity papers. No passport. No official existence. No access to basic services. No legal protections.
The discrimination shows up in how protests are handled, too. Ethnic and religious minorities were recorded to have had the highest and longest participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement well into 2023, already having faced widespread poverty, decades of discrimination and pervasive impunity for violations committed against them. OHCHR They showed up. They kept showing up. They had the most to lose and they protested anyway.
A pre-existing heavy military and security presence in minority-populated border provinces created a permissive environment for the State to repress the protests, leading to ethnic and religious minorities experiencing the highest number of deaths and injuries during the entire movement. OHCHR The security forces were already there, already watching, already prepared to crack down. When the protests came, minorities paid the highest price in blood.

The #SaviGoli Campaign

The #SaviGoli campaign has been started to help Kouhkan raise the necessary funds to avoid execution. People are spreading the word, raising money, generating international pressure. Every toman counts toward that 10 billion toman goal.
Fariba Baluch, a human rights activist and 2024 International Women of Courage Award winner who joined the campaign, called Kouhkan representative of “hundreds and thousands of women whose names we don’t know.” Iranwire For every Goli Kouhkan whose story makes it to international news, how many others are there? How many women are sitting in prisons right now, facing similar fates, whose names we’ll never learn?
A former cellmate said saving Kouhkan should be everyone’s concern. She noted how marginalized people, deprived of everything, were discriminated against for years, and that Kouhkan has reached out for help to people. She thinks it’s time to stand by her because she doesn’t have much time. Iranwire
The clock is ticking. December 2025 will arrive whether the money has been raised or not. Without the full payment of 10 billion tomans, the sentence will be carried out. There are no extensions. No appeals left. No last-minute legal maneuvers. The victim’s family has set their price, and either it gets paid or Kouhkan dies.
She waits in her cell, tailoring to pass the time, watching football matches when she can, hoping that somewhere beyond the prison walls, enough people will hear her story. Hoping that enough people will care. Hoping that money will somehow materialize from strangers moved by her plight. Hoping that she’ll see her son again. Hoping that she’ll get to live past 25.

References

Iran: Child bride faces execution, £80,000 fine for killing ‘abusive’ husband
Child Bride Will Be Executed Unless She Can Raise $100K
Iran: Child bride faces execution unless $150,000 ‘blood money’ paid
Child bride in Iran can avoid execution if she raises $105,000 by December – The Guardian
Child bride faces execution in Iran unless she pays £80,000 in blood money
Goli Kouhkan; Undocumented Baluch Child Bride to be Hanged Due to Inability to Pay Blood Money
Child Bride on Death Row in Iran Appeals for Help to Avoid Execution
Iran: Women and girls treated as second class citizens, reforms urgently needed, says UN expert
Minorities in Iran have been disproportionally impacted in ongoing crackdown
Extreme Inequality: The Human Rights Situation of Iran’s Baluch Minority
Blood money in Islam – Wikipedia
2024 Executions for Murder Charges in Iran

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.