We, a group of women activists in Iran who demand equality, would have liked to attend the fifty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women in the UN. But because of all the threats that the participating women in the previous years have been facing, we decided to talk to you from afar, with the hope that you, on behalf of Iranian women, would defend our rights in the efforts to eliminate all types of gender discriminations and violence against women. We hope that you would encourage the Iranian government, who is a member of CSW, to comply with its international obligations to create gender equality. We also hope that with the pressure of the world’s women’s movement activists and the follow-up of the UN, Iranian women’s activists would be granted a guaranteed safety to attend the next sessions, and therefore, would be able to work with you side by side towards reaching gender equality.
But what do Iranian women suffer from in reality?
But what do Iranian women suffer from in reality?
Despite all the changes in the global and Iranian community in the last 30 years, the legal status of women in Iran doesn’t match their social. Still, some Iranian politicians in Power believe that the legal inequalities in the law are not enough, and they try to add to them by sending new bills to the parliament, which would cause the legal status of women to become even worse. Nowadays, we are witnessing increasing pressure on Iranian women, and that the policies and programming of a large part of the policy and decision making sections of the State, including the parliament, government, and the supreme leader, is seriously focused on pushing women out of the work force and back into their homes. There is the fear that these type of programming would work full force in their practical and administration stages after the ninth parliament election when the Family Protection Bill becomes a law, when the Labor Law changes against women, when women are prevented from entering some educational fields and kept away from social and political participations in general more than ever, and when, most importantly, the pressure on women’s activists who make the effort to improve women’s situation increases. In addition, we can see that alongside many of the programs that work to the detriment of women, the main guidelines in the universities and public research centres is to emphasize women’s role as mothers and wives and to weaken their social roles. All of these is while a closer look at the Iranian society and Iranian women’s situation can point out to the fact that the legal status of Iranian women and what the Iranian politicians would like to project as its image has no relation to women’s abilities and desires, and Iranian women’s situation cannot be explained only based on the reactionary legal status of them.This is when pushing women backwards and out of the fields they have struggled to achieve access to is an unpredictable and irreparable regression.
At present, women’s income, which can provide a more equal position for them at home, in the family, and in the society, and which can increase their role in decision making as well as decreasing the domestic violence against them, is a lot lower than men’s. Based on the information on the year 2003, women’s share of income has been only 11 percent [1]. The unequal share of women from the national income, which itself is the result of discrimination in employment, wages and financial laws, has a great effect on growing the discrimination and violence against women in Iran. At present and especially because of the changes in the government approaches, women are being pushed away from social fields such as the labor force on a daily basis. The government’s propaganda in the recent years has been on depicting only a mother’s role for women and on persuading them to stay at home. The successful birth control policies in the recent years in Iran, which have resulted in one of the most important achievements for women specifically and for the society in general, have changed and the government is now encouraging having more children and emphasizing on women’s role as mothers. Now, women face a lot of discriminations and inequalities in entering the work force, which is the main arena for increasing their income. In spite of this, the government not only does not do anything to change the situation but also have marginalized women in the social fields in general and the work force specifically by its changed approaches in the recent years. This change has been seen in all social fields such as education, employment, family, and social activities.
Social Fields : Education and Employment
Going to university has an important effect on entering the work force as universities are the institutions where the required knowledge and professional training can be gained. But women have been facing discriminations in this area as well. After the revolution in 1979, some restrictions were imposed on the entrance of women into agricultural and technical-engineering field of studies[2]. Statistics show that the result of such policies have been more gender inequalities in the professional work force, an example of which was a lower female economic activity rate [3]. As a result of women’s increased awareness and the society’s changes, the imposed direct restrictions on higher education policies for women were partly removed[4], and therefore women ended up outnumbering men in the universities. In the year 2007 the ratio of women entering universities were more than 60%[5]. But this higher number of women entering the universities did not cause a higher employment rate for them, and while they were not successful in getting higher employment opportunities the same way they were successful in getting into the universities, they gradually even faced the limitations to enter the universities. Women’s chances are being taken away by the introduction of a gender-based and indigenous-based quota system for entering the universities, and by so many other discriminatory projects that would prevent them from continuing their education, specifically in those fields which have a higher employment rate in the job market.
The result of these approaches has been more widespread inequality between men and women in regards to the division of resources and welfare, and also the “feminization of poverty”. This is to the point where women’s unemployment rate compared to men’s is increasing on a daily basis. Women’s unemployment rate in 2006 was 15.9% compared to men’s 10 %. This rate changed to 16.8 % in 2009 and 25% in the spring of the same year. Based on this statistics, more than 500,000 women lost their jobs in that spring, and the number of unemployed women moved from 741,000 to 1,231,000[6]. According to the experts, the continuing imbalance in the supply and demand in employment opportunities would lead to a women’s unemployment rate of 40%[7]. This is when at present there are a lot of women who are the only breadwinner of the family. In 2006 , 1,640,000 women were the breadwinners, which means that about 9.5 percent of the families in the countries are supported by and dependant on women[8]. Also, a lot of married or single women find themselves obligated to work in order to increase the family’s income and to avoid poverty. In a lot of cases, even without a financial need, women would like to work to be financially independent and to have a social role.
Increased Violence against Women
Women’s unemployment and lack of financial independence not only keeps them away from being socially active but also leads to greater inequalities and violent behaviors in the family and in the society. Women who are not financially independent have a higher tendency to accept domestic violence as they have fewer options to escape it. At the social level as well, because of unequal power relations and an expanded gender gap in the society, women face different types of damages that they cannot avoid. We can see this trend by having a look at the spread of daily violence against women and the social damages on them. According to the general manager of The State Welfare’s Office of the Services to Disadvantaged, of all cases, the cases of wife abuse had the highest number, so much so that only in 2010, there were 8,000 cases reported only through the emergency line[9]. The range of violence against women, from physical, psychological and sexual to cultural and security-related types is expanding with momentum and on a daily basis. The volume of published news on violence against women has outstripped the volume and level that is permissible to be published in daily newspapers for the public knowledge. At present, in addition to the suppression of dissent, the increasing number of the arrest of women and men including both social and political activists or ordinary citizens, the sense of insecurity for citizens because of a police-state environment with the heavy shadow of the police and security forces in both public and private places, the re-enactment of the old policies of the 90’s such as gender segregation, control over university students’ clothing, establishment of single-sex universities, and enforcement of gender and indigenous quota for entering the universities, we are witnessing the fast widespread of violence against women at a social level. Some examples of these types of violence against women have been the poignant cases of gang rapes and the increasing number of cases of acid-throwing on women. All the while, the way that the police, security and judicial forces dealt with these disastrous issues only showcased their misogynistic attitudes and irresponsibility, and it also proved how badly the wrong policies can create a reproduction and expansion of violent crimes against women in the society.
After the gang rape of a woman by 50 men in the surrounding lands of Ghozhed village, of environs of the central part of Kashmar county, Kashmar county’s prosecuting attorney did not provide any clear response as to why he did not follow up on the case even when the case has already been covered by the media, and only stated that he could not take any actions until the woman made a complaint[10]. In another gang rape case, 12 young men from Khomeini town of Isfehan attacked a group of men and women in a garden, tied the men’s hands and feet, took the women to another garden and raped them. In this incident, while the people in Khomeini town gathered in front of the courthouse demanding a serious reaction and response to the perpetrators and a follow-up on the case, the judiciary officials stayed quiet in response, and the official stand of the police and Isfehan’s Friday prayers Imam was that the women were responsible for what had happened to them as their (the women’s) clothing was inappropriate. Also, following the news of this gang rape, Isfehan’s Chief of police announced a 113% increase in the number of rape cases. According to him, incidents like what happened in Khomeini town were natural and had happened in other cities as well[11]. News coming from other official websites have revealed cases of gang rapes of women, which lead to their death in some cases, in Isfehan (gang rape of ten women by 14 men), in Golestan ( the gang rape of the village’s doctor by four men, and the rape that lead to the death of a girl by two men), and in Khorasan. Such type of news continues to be heard.
On the other hand, the unequal power relations within the family help the occurrence of such cases in the family. The more such cases happen within the families, the more it will happen in the society. This is when in Iran, women are not only resistant to reporting rape for reasons like being related to the rapist, being afraid of the rapist’s revenge, feeling shame for what has happened and therefore trying to save face, being afraid of the justice system for holding them responsible, and being aware of the society’s view that considers the victims at fault, but they are also obliged by the law to provide sex to their husbands whenever they demand it, and this way the rape of a woman by her husband is deemed legal and legitimate, and therefore completely possible. In this regard, it is important to note that the government is NOT planning to change the situation, and the parliament is also not thinking of a new legislation or rectifying the family law. At the same, the NGO’s activities in these areas have been facing serious restrictions, and even providing information and statistics about these cases is regarded as actions that would endanger the national security. The changes in the laws have worked against women; not only domestic violence against them is not a crime and not only abused women are not supported by the law and do not have safe homes to go to, but if they decide to leave their homes to escape from the violence, they are considered at fault and will lose all their legal rights in the marriage. Also, the statistics of under-aged girls being married by the protection of law and customs[12], and the governments’ promotion of such cases is quite notable. Based on official statistics, in 2010, there were 900,000 cases of under-aged married children, of which 85% were girls. In 2009, 449 marriage of under 10-year-old girls (0.1%), 40,160 marriage of under 15-year-old girls (4.5 %), and 301,246 marriages of 15 to 19-year-olds (33.8%) were registered. Based on these statistics, those girls who get married at a young age, without their consent, informed decision or awareness, and only based on their fathers’ decisions, are in reality legally raped. Another case of violence against women, which we have witnessed an increasing number of which during the last year, has been acid throwing. There are no statistics available regarding acid throwing, but the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization reported an average of three such cases per year in 2004, but from the spring of 2011 to the month of November of the same year, 8 cases of acid throwing on women have been reported by the media.
Regardless of the reasons behind the increase of such types of violence against women, the lack of related laws on such issues is very noticeable. In Iran, there are no prohibiting laws regarding violence against women, be it domestic, rape, or acid throwing. Nowhere in the law, the support of women has been addressed specifically, and there has been no preparation or planning to prevent such cases from happening, or to support the victims.
The aforementioned cases were examples of discriminations against women in Iran, especially in the recent years. Women’s activists have repeatedly objected to the systematic violence against women, but not only have they ever received a response, but have been faced with an intensified security atmosphere to intimidate them. In the recent years, we have witnessed the interrogations, summons, and arrests of a lot of women’s activists, and the issue of verdicts against them; the pressure on them has been so much that many of them decided to leave the country. Therefore, we would like to use this opportunity to seek your help in this Commission on Women’s Status to encourage the Iranian government, a member of the UN with a seat on the Commission on Women’s Status, to comply with their commitments to eliminate gender discrimination and inequalities. The Iranian State as a member of the UN and the Commission on Women’s Status is obliged to fulfill the requirements for its commitment to eliminate discrimination against women and girls. We are asking all of the UN members and all representatives of worldwide women’s activists present in this conference to force Iran to honour its commitments. Demand that institutions of power, the police, security and judicial forces in Iran be concerned about the life and security of their citizens who are subject to violence or menace one way or another, and that they take actions to do what they are responsible for instead of intensifying the violence or causing harassment.
[1] . Center for Women’s Participation. (2005), “ Report on women’s status evolution between 1997- 2004”, Tehran: Sureh Mehr publishing Company; Koolaee, Elahe. (2005) “ Women’s Role in the development of Islamic Countries (Emphasis on Middle East and South East asia)”, Tehran: University of Tehran Press.
[2] .Farasatkhah, Maghsood; Mokhtar, Mokhtari (2011), The study and evaluation of the performance of Supreme Council of Cultural revolution, vol , Tehran, Secretariat of Supreme Council of Cultural revolution
[3] . Farasatkhah, Maghsood (1990), The Study of the Process of University Evolution in Iran,vol. 2, Tehran: Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education
[4]. Bouzari, Sima (2002), Women’s Positions in the Counries’ Research Activities, Tehran : Institute for Research and Planning in higher Education
[5] . Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Institute for Research and Planning in higher Education
[7] . ILNA, Dec 9th, 2011
[8] . All the statistics provided here is from the . Iran Statistics Center, Bureau of Population & Labor force Statistics and the Census
[9] . ISNA , Dec 7, 2011
[10] . Mehr, June 19th, 2011
[11] .Khabaronline, June 26th, 2011
[12] . based on Iran’s law, it is permissible for girls to get married at the age of 13 with the permission of their fathers. For girls under the age of 13, the court’s permission in addition to the father’s is required.
