FREE ESSAY ON WOMEN IN IRAN

WOMEN IN IRAN

Organized and Institutionalized Sexual Exploitation and Violence
Policy and Law
The Press Law and Women Bill was ratified into law on the 13th of August 1998 in Iran; it
is the Fifth Amendment of Article 6 of the press law. The bill states that, commercial
use of women's image and texts declaring women's issues, humiliation, insult, propagation
of formality, use of ornaments, and defending women's beyond the bounds of legal and
religious law is forbidden. Violators of the law will be punished with lashes and
imprisonment, as well as losing their publication license. Consequences of Press Law and
Women Bill include: 
? According to this amendment, supporting or defending the rights of women in any
publication is strictly banned because it is believed that such arguments create more
contention and adversity between men and women. However, men are excluded from the above
law. This encourages a culture of male chauvinism. 
? The ratification of this bill does not allow any criticism advocacy, in the press, of
the laws governing women's rights. 
? This bill will ban all female images, texts, or arguments for modification of the
existing law. Therefore, women's issues are completely invisible in the media. 
? This bill will create conflicts between the clerical community and the press because
the law has never defined commercial use of women's image and text. Therefore, the
subject is completely left at personal interpretation and judgment. Because of the
fanatic nature of Islamic rulers, this amendment means complete elimination of women from
public media. 
Married Iranian women require their husband's permission to apply for a passport,
according to Article 18 of the passport law. In case of an emergency or absence of the
husband, the public prosecutor's office can issue the permit within 3 days from the date
of the application. 
Islamic government does not recognize the divorces and the marriages administered in
foreign countries unless they are endorsed by Iranian embassies, consulates, or the
rituals are repeated in Iran. The consequences are: 
? If an Iranian married couple immigrate to a foreign country and divorce according to
the laws of that country, the divorce is not legitimate for the woman. The process must
be repeated in the Islamic embassy or the consulate. If each of the spouses remarries
separately after the divorce in the overseas country and travels to Iran, the wife could
be arrested and tried for committing adultery. The punishment for adultery is burying the
woman in the ground and stoning her to death. However, this does not apply to the man. By
law, the man is not in marriage violation. 
? If a couple have children, and the court granted custody of the children to the mother,
if they traveled to Iran, the husband could take the children away from his ex-wife
because husband is the sole custodian for the children. No custody privilege is granted
to women under any circumstance. 
If a couple divorce in a foreign country and then travel to Iran to finalize their
divorce proceeding, the divorce process for the woman might take years because the
consent of the husband is always necessary to finalize the divorce. The husband may go
ahead and marry another woman while his case is pending with the first wife. Under laws
imposed after the 1979 revolution, women: 
? Must cover all parts of their bodies (including their hair) except for the face and
hands, with loose-fitting garments. 
? Must not wear any make-up. 
? Unrelated couples are not allowed to socialize at all. 
The penalties for violating these rules, imposed in the name of preventing social vice,
vary from simple reprimands to lashes and payment of fines, and even execution by stoning
in the case of illicit sexual relationships. The Iranian Human Rights Working Group
(IHRWG) maintains that these laws are in violation of Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which Iran is a signatory. 
Official Response and Action
On May 18, 1998, some 20 women and girls were arrested by the Iranian police in Tehran
for socializing with unrelated men or failing to observe the strict dress code that is
mandated for women. These types of arrest have occurred regularly since 1980. In April,
1998, an Iranian girl, detained by authorities on suspicion that she was having a
relationship with a man, committed suicide while in detention in the southwest Iranian
city of Abadan. 
Case
Sheyda Khoramzadeh Esfahani was sentenced to death following her conviction on charges of
'organizing `corrupt gatherings' with prostitutes, alcohol, drugs, music and dance ` and
to establish immoral contacts with people in various political bodies.'' She was executed
in August 1997. Her husband Abolghasem Majd-Abkahi was reportedly executed in late
December 1996 or early January 1997. 
Three women and three men were stoned to death in public in Khazar Abad after a court
found them guilty of adultery and prostitution under Iran's Islamic laws. Prostitution
and adultery are illegal and punishable by death. The stoning was carried out by local
citizens in public in Khazar Abad, near the Caspian Sea. 
A 20-year-old Iranian woman was stoned for adultery in Bukan, in Western Iran. Stoning is
a death sentence, but she was mistaken for dead and later revived in the morgue. A court
official said that an appeal for amnesty has been submitted to the court.