From:
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2001 Released by the
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of State Department-USA,
March 4, 2002
.....Women
Although spousal abuse and violence against women occurred, statistics
regarding such abuse are not available publicly. Abuse in the family is
considered a private matter and seldom is discussed publicly. Rape is
illegal; however, the law rarely is enforced, and rape is a widespread
problem. The Special Representative noted in his September 2000 report
that media reporting on the situation of women has diminished?
Prostitution is illegal. Information regarding the extent of the problem
is not available. A girls' center in Karaj reportedly was involved in the
trafficking of girls.
Women have access to primary and advanced education;however, social and
legal constraints limit their professional opportunities. In September
2000, the Majles approved a controversial bill to allow single women to
travel abroad for graduate education.
The Council of Guardians was considering the legislation at year's end.
The State enforces gender segregation in most public spaces, and
prohibits women mixing openly with unmarried men or men not related to
them. Women must ride in a reserved section on public buses and enter
public buildings, universities, and airports through separate entrances.
Women are prohibited from attending male sporting events, although this
restriction does not appear to be enforced universally. While the
enforcement of a conservative Islamic dress codes has varied with the
political climate since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, what
women wear in public is not entirely a matter of personal choice. The
authorities harass women if their dress or behavior is considered
inappropriate, and women may be sentenced to flogging or imprisonment for
such violations. The law prohibits the publication of pictures of
uncovered women in the print media, including pictures of foreign women.
There are penalties for failure to observe Islamic dress codes at work .
Discrimination against women is reinforced by law through provisions of
the Islamic Civil and Penal Codes, in particular those sections dealing
with family and property law. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, the
Government repealed the Family Protection Law, a hallmark bill adopted in
1967, that gave women increased rights in the home and workplace, and
replaced it with a legal system based largely on Shari'a practices. In
1998 the Majles passed legislation that mandated segregation of the sexes
in the provision of medical care. The bill provided for women to be
treated only by female physicians and men by male physicians and raised
questions about the quality of care that women could receive under such a
regime, considering the imbalance between the number of trained and
licensed male and female physicians and specialists.
In October 2000, the Parliament passed a bill to raise thelegal age of
marriage.
Guardians rejected the bill in November 2000 as contrary to Islamic
law. Nonetheless, even under the law, marriage at the minimum age is
rare. All women, no matter the age, must have the permission of their
father or a living male relative in order to marry. The law allows for
the practice of Siqeh, or temporary marriage, a Shi'a custom in which a
woman or a girl may become the wife of a married or single Muslim male
after a simple and brief religious ceremony. The Siqeh marriage may last
for a night or as little as 30 minutes. The bond is not recorded on
identification documents, and, according to Islamic law, men may have as
many Siqeh wives as they wish. Such wives are not granted rights
associated with traditional marriage.
The Penal Code includes provisions that mandate the stoning of women and
men convicted of adultery . Women have the right to divorce, and the
grounds on which a woman may seek a divorce include proving that her
husband is addicted to drugs or that he has not supported her for
extended periods. However, a husband is not required to cite a reason for
divorcing his wife. In 1986 the Government issued a 12-point
"contract" to serve as a model for marriage and divorce, which limits
the privileges accorded to men by custom and traditional interpretations
of Islamic law. The model contract also recognized a divorced woman's
right to a share in the property that couples acquire during their
marriage and to increased alimony rights. Women who remarry are forced
to give up to the child's father custody of children from earlier
marriages. However, the law granted custody of minor children to the
mother in certain divorce cases in which the father is proven unfit to
care for the child, such as in cases
in which the father suffers from drug addiction or has a criminal
record. Muslim women may not marry non-Muslim men. The testimony of a
woman is worth only half that of a man in court. A married woman must
obtain the written consent of her husband before traveling outside the
country.
In his August report, the UNSR reported that poverty severely impacts
women and that there are about one million single-mother families, and
that 29 percent of the families below the poverty line are single-mother
families. In addition, 70 percent of the single mothers in rural areas
are illiterate.
AIWUSA Association of Iranian Women-US
WEBSITE: WWW.AIWUSA.ORG
E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TEL: 703-941-8584
IRANIAN WOMEN'S BRIEF # 53
May 2002
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