Aziz Mohammed, human rights minister in the Kurdish regional government, said 10 of the murdered women were from the Arbil, 11 from Dohuk and six from Sulaimaniyah -- the three provinces making up the Kurdish region.

"These are alleged honour killings. We can say that the violence against women continues" in Kurdish Iraq, Mohammed told AFP.

He said 97 women -- 60 in Arbil, 21 in Dohuk and 16 in Sulaimaniyah -- had attempted to commit suicide by self-immolation during the four months.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq has regularly highlighted "honour killings" of Kurdish women as among Iraq's most severe human rights abuses.

Most of such crimes are reported as deaths due to accidental fires in the home.

Aso Kamal, a 42-year-old British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner, says that from 1991 to 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of "honour" or committed suicide in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq.

Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region runs its own affairs and has enjoyed relative peace and growing prosperity since the US invasion of March 2003, while Arab areas of Iraq have been plunged into sectarian warfare.

Crimes against women are continuing despite campaigns by human rights activists and regular denouncing of the oppression by the three women ministers and 28 female MPs in the 111-member autonomous Kurdish parliament.