NCRI – The Iranian regime must be ordered to end its violence, discrimination and suppression of women and scrap laws which allow polygamy, a leading campaign group has told the United Nations.
Laws which restrict women from travelling, control their dress code and exclude them from jobs and education must all be overturned, Austria’s Verein Südwind Entwicklungspolitik – meaning Southwind Society for Developmental Politics – has said in a statement to UN Secretary General.
Their report -compiled by prominent women’s rights activists – highlights the ever worsening legalised discrimination against women since the 1979 revolution.
Already draconian laws were then made even harsher by the 2005 Chastity and Hijab Directive, and a further directive issued by the Islamic Guidance Minister in October 2005, which demanded women must return home at the end of office hours because their presence ‘warmed the heart of the family unit’.
The group highlighted six key areas were urgent changes need to be made.
With education, the group said discrimination began after the revolution when thousands of studentsa were expelled from universities for criticising the regime, but worsened over recent years with the establishment of gender segregation and female-only universities across the state education system.
Women had also been barred from 14 fields of education, and 23 all-female universities would be ready to open next year, an official from the ministry of higher education had said.
Mohammad Mehdi Mazaheri, Vice President of the privately owned Free Universities Group, was quoted as saying: “As many as six single sex universities are on operation, while about 90 per cent of the science and laboratory lessons and 100 per cent of general fields are sex-segregated.”
In some universities, the group said, the segregation ratios were as follows read as follows: Maths and technical 20 per cent, human sciences 30 per cent, arts 34 per cent, foreign languages 25 per cent. Segregation also reached to university transport systems and queues at the canteens, and some students had been expelled for ‘improper behaviour’ which included talking to male colleagues. Females are also advised to wear loose clothes of dark colours and avoid make up. The university intelligence also informs parents of any ‘improper behaviour’ in the university dormitories, and as a result female students are regularly harassed and intimidated.
University gender ratios also narrows the choice for women when choosing a university, but when women do succeed it is rarely reflected in national statistics. The head of Iran’s national census is reported as saying: “Women with higher education expect better jobs while the market is made for men and women cannot replace men.”
The fundamentalist approach to gender inequality was summed up in remarks by a former education minister, who said recently: “Boys and girls are different and education authorities and parents are aware that even the duration of study at school must be different for them.”
In sport, women also suffer severe restrictions on what they can wear, with the Islamic dress code working as a barrier to free movement and preventing women from engaging in many sports. Women are also barred from stadiums to watch matches.
In prisons and detention centres, women suffer frequent abuse, torture and execution while incercerated. They also suffer further violence as the wives, daughters or relatives of prisoners. One example of this is prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh’s 12 year old daughter who was banned from travelling abroad. The ban was only lifted after Sotoudeh went on hunger strike for 49 days.
Young girls face further dangers and assault in prison as there are no separate provisions for juveniles in many prisons. According to one woman activist who served six months in a prison in Iran, sexual abuse and beatings by older prisoners of girls as young as 11 to 18 is common.
Women also suffer discrimination over their reproductive rights,
with abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest. Women forced to resort to backstreet abortion clinics often put their health at risk.
Also, because state policy is to increase the population, family planning centres which provided education and guidance have been closed down and distribution of free condoms halted. Free men’s vasectomy has also stopped, though that can still be done privately. Such policies are aimed at forcing women to have more children and stay home, despite the fac that population growth has brought poverty, addiction and unemployment.
The group also stressed the way women are suppressed by laws on how they dress, and quoted Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code, which states: “Women who appear in the public without proper dress code will be imprisoned between 10 days to 2 months and ordered to pay a fine as well.” In many cases, women also receive lashings, the group said.
Finally, the entire Iranian legal framework supports men’s supremacy in the family, permits polygamy, gives men the unilateral right to divorce, unequal inheritance, child marriage, child guardianship and allows them to punish their children. Such provisions inherently violate women’s rights, but also provide further opportunities for violence against them, the group said.
In addition, bisexual and lesbian rights’ are not recognized in law and they are constantly under threat of detention and punishment. A woman’s right to employment and travel are also at the discretion of her husband after marriage, and all women must seek permission of a male family member if they want to apply for a passport and travel abroad.
The statement ended: “Women’s rights activists believe that discriminatory laws must be changed, that Iran ratifies the CEDAW and complies with its contents. At present, as it stands, violence against women and gender discrimination will continue to grow in all areas and spheres of public and private lives of Iranian women.
“We urge the Human Rights Council to consider the issues raised in this report as grave abuse of women’s human rights and demand the Islamic Republic of Iran to:
• Stop discrimination, segregation and violence against women in education from nursery to the PhD levels.
• End discrimination at job market.
• Stop restrictions on women’s freedom of expression including dress code.
• Cancel the humiliating and unjustifiable bill which restricts freedom of movement and travel for adult women.
• Withdraw the family bill which among other privileges, give men free hand to polygamy.”
