Just as people began gathering in Erbil’s Dream City for their final Ramadhan meal one evening in early April, a man shot and killed his estranged wife on a busy road outside the upscale development. The murder was covered briefly during the local evening news, but not mentioned again in subsequent segments. In the past, the open murder of a woman in public would have been top-of-broadcast news, but not now.

Iraqi Kurdistan has a reputation for having a better record on women’s rights than its neighbors. Still, violence against women and girls is common, and it is increasingly difficult to ascertain the scale of the problem without jumping...