Human Rights of Women in Iran - Nasrin Azadeh

Legal Barriers - Human Rights of Women in Iran

Political Machinery to Achieve MDG


Women’s abuse is as ancient as myths. A means of establishing and securing male’s supremacy in the private and public spheres justifies violence against women. In Iran all forms of violence such as political and judicial belligerence, financial, psychological, and sexual is rampant. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. What has shadowed Iranian women’s life stems out of dominant masculine fundamentalism that its existence depends on women’s lack of awareness and Education.

The political implications of the determinism that accompanies hard-line fundamentalism state ruling have marginalized women to remain a second class citizen. Understanding the definitions and discourses surrounding masculinity can help in the analysis of how political, economic and cultural inequalities are produced and distributed not only between but also within the genders. In today’s drama of Iranian women’s life only those are entitled to live respectfully that withdraw from their rights in favor of men voluntarily. No arguing, no intellect, no other preoccupations should be projected. When they speak they should say what are expected from.

Women do not speak of their arduous lives unless it becomes unbearable and beyond control. This silence has various reasons in the societies but mostly relates to the conditions of women’s social and individual culture. Families and government orgs veil the major characteristics of violence against women. Due to the lack of education and awareness, women are not fully aware of their individual and social rights. Majority of women tend to surrender and somehow cope with this submission to violence.

The instrumental approach to women under hegemony of fundamentalists is just the same as what they have been convicting the developed countries for. If women are to be instrumentally abused why not where there is some respect for these instruments. The out of date thinking that have brought women only 1% of assets and 10% of social income while they are taking the burden of 2/3 of work load. It is necessary to provide the ground for reducing women’s male dependence, particularly financial dependence by facilitating women’s participation in economic affairs and formal employment. A social support system must be institutionalized to prevent women’s physical and mental vulnerability in hands of abusive men


Moreover the male dominated world of work has widely discriminated women to meaningfully participate in national economy and has driven them to informal zone. High unemployment rate rising to 40 percent is a serious factor in driving restless youth to accept risky offers for work. In this context social deviation has find its way into the younger generation. One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home. The girls are rebelling against fundamentalist imposed restrictions on their freedom, domestic abuse, and parental drug addictions. Unfortunately, in their flight to freedom, the girls find more abuse and exploitation. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists.

The fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls by injecting low self esteem and blocking financial access. For hardliners slavery is acceptable statues for women which makes them to be prone to abuse and compelled to prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution since recent years.

Legal codes tend to legitimize patriarchy by granting men the right to divorce their wives whenever they choose. Women practically can only manage to file for divorce by giving up all their rights to alimony, child support and marriage portion. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful officials. Exploitation and repression of women are closely associated; both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied their basic human rights.

Widows particularly are isolated and excluded from healthy socializing due to the fact that polygamy is legally accepted and men who can afford are encouraged to take second wives. Therefore married women are exposed to constant insecurity considering the fact that 62% of women as homemakers are economically dependant on their spouse. As for employment in public sector, the application form of the State agencies such as National TV, are marked with two boxes for marital status of men which indicate the legitimacy of having two wives.

Women can only travel if the father or husband allows and issues legal documentation. While the majority of women are encouraged to stay at home they are deprived from any kind of social security. Men have legal authorization over the choosing of profession of women and housing.
Women are still not allowed to judge and only render judgment as consultant to family courts as they are considered inferior and too emotional in crisis. According to criminal penal law in Iran, a man is exempt from execution even supported for impunity if he kills his wife in case he witnesses her at the time of adultery.


The paradox of criminal liability of women living under institutionalized legal discrimination where the State law considers them irrational, too emotional, second class citizen; the court verdict of execution for women is obviously unjust and inhuman. Women hold responsible for the acts that they have no legitimate control to avoid. While her giving evidence counts half of the man; and questioning her rationality is formulated in the law, the same justification applies for the elimination of execution sentence which would serve the justice to fit her legal responsibility.

Women have no other choice than deconstructing the equilibrium of men and women power relations. Increase of divorce, highest participation in education, self esteem, economic independence against the will of their fathers or husbands are strong indications of real movement where rallying in the street and overt protestation ends up in imprisonment.

Political participation of women in Iran:

4% of members of the Parliament
2.6% of members of the city councils
1.2% of higher ranking positions
5.2% middle management level
11% of total State employees and law firms
Despite the fact that in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education more than 75.3% are women, there is not even one woman placed in higher position
65% of new entrees to the universities are girls as well as 40% of graduated degrees

Source: Iran Statistics Center, 2002


The ratification of CEDAW has been hampered by hardliners due to the fact that the basic human rights of women are not approved. The Constitution can not respond to the demands made by the CEDAW upon signatories as it explicitly calls on member governments to devise penalties for those who perpetrate discrimination against women.

The absence of political will among governments to provide the resources for women’s empowerment has framed international conventions into empty words and lip services. Among the causes that restrict UN agencies to achieve MDG goals a lack of commitment and involvement of the NGOs, private sector and individual citizens, men and women are measured as well as inadequate financial resources. Yet there are not any remarks in MDG on the importance of political participation of women which definitely creates practical results. While within the MDG, there are several emphasizes on health care, however there is little consideration on enforcing quota system or the liability of the states to facilitate women’s participation in high level decision making.

UN agencies as they abide fully to rules and regulations imposed by the autocratic states have not succeeded to eradicate poverty as planned. In a workshop held by UNDP in Iran, civil actor's opinion over UN linkage with the civil society and actors of NGOs was quoted as:

A pessimistic presumption toward civil institutions, a corrupted and complex bureaucracy, biased and selective approach to community associations, unclear and unfamiliar literature and most important of all lack of transparency in performing the programs in addition to their general policy making in Iran were among consentaneous issues. Informed parties also point to programs that these multilateral agencies carried out through direct involvement of certain orgs linked to the government.

In the human rights talks, NGOs were invited to testify facing higher judiciary officials and security officers. Therefore among human right defenders none did show up. The Human Rights Watch criticizes the state for not letting true Representative of women and civil society to participate in the meetings, which in itself is breaching the law. Amnesty Intl and WW that were informed by 15 Iranian groups and Associations abroad pointed that the previous rounds showed breach of Freedom of speech and opinion and press, right to association, and right to “PRIVATE LIFE”. In modern methodology, the penetration into civil society institutions and other civil orgs is the winning plan of action for autocratic regimes. They tend to confiscate for their own good the fruits of civil activities on mass wisdom and manipulate people’s awareness of “REALITY”. International institutions are a good target and are particularly listed in their agenda.

In figuring out what’s going on in this country and in our relations, the picture is filled with lumpens and vigilantes connected with the power players that are imposing, driving, directing, and threatening our historical civility. This is part of the current State strategy to crackdown on civil society and women’s rights organizations which should be guarded against at all cost.
The constant meddling of lumpens in our day to day life and the fear to be harassed has subjugated men and women in a way that fear of scandal or troubles have blocked their normal life. To address violations of our life by vigilant state agents, we must challenge the lumpenism domination and dictatorship that is institutionalized in the ruling structure. Religious fundamentalists by joining lumpen and vigilantes have legitimized terror.
The craving to guard our dignity and respect amongst our fellows do us some disservice in keeping us silent. Camus says something about the innocent being forced by this age to speak out and rebel. The Association of free press has called for all defenders of rights of speech and pen, and other defenders of civil rights and free circulation of information and the families of prisoners of conscience to gather in the Judiciary Complex to further manifest their protest against mass illegal arrests and detention of civil actors, journalists and members of NGOs. The Association pointed to the threatening censorship and imposed articles which by the direct order of the Prosecutor are forced to be published in the Media. The attempt of imposed articles to be published which manipulates the reality and creates a virtual and unrealistic social context is an obvious breach of law specifically marked in Article No 4 and 5 of the Law of Printing Media. This has been universally pointed as the true violation of basic human rights.

Using customs and traditions to legitimize widespread violation of women’s rights to have healthy engagement in their associations and activities with men and women must be seriously raised in judiciary tribunes. Venues should be provided for men and women that allow them to speak and reveal the systematic intrusions into and violations of their very basic human rights.

Despite the fact that insufficient public awareness and a failure to mobilize community-level understanding and support through civil society organizations and the media are included in the list among the causes that thwart progress, UN agency’s organizational structure does not allow effective interference. There must be practical machinery to monitor and implement the areas of concerns raised in international conventions.
Ratification of CEDAW not only would expand the umbrella of legal protection over women, but would allow women of Iran to be part of a global endorsement in recognition for women’s human rights. However, Iran by endorsing the Covenant on the Civil and Political Rights, and the Charter of the United Nations as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that obliges the States to eradicate all discrimination against women is bound to respect and abide all international legal measurements. Policies and information are needed to also make the MDG goals a national priority.
Women’s Networks globally request the authorities to review legislation to assess national policies. The review should include the whole range of legal tools. Various levels of investigation are required to assess critical areas. Women should advocate for removing all discriminatory laws, to unleash all imposed rules and regulations, and respects basic human rights for women.

The public sphere, always inseparable from the concepts of liberty and distinction, is characterized by equality: men are by nature not equal, they require a political institution to become equal, in a word, laws. Only political action can generate equality (Fina Birules, p. 22)

Providing safer environment and security are necessary when advocating for initiation to make changes. To this end, establishing a globally supported Justice Monitoring system can pave the way. Women are underrepresented in the judicial and political system through out the globe.

Access to justice through a globally approved Organization comprising of women Judges, lawyers, activists, academia and politicians elected in the next round of gathering for Beijing +10, is a proposal to achieve practical outcome.
Civil society is a watchdog particularly effective in its manifestation in the media. Distribution of daily news to echo the effect of various abuse and violations against women, the silent victims; addressing women’s issues and raise voices on the government’s accountability to its people must be widely practiced to ensure human rights of women.


Nasrin Azadeh
December 8, 2004





Proactive and participatory monitoring and evaluation

Development projects need to provide documented and unambiguous information about their impact on poverty. Implementation completion reports may effectively assess or systematically document project lessons. Participatory methods for monitoring and evaluation provide rapid assessments, and are used as substitutes for thorough evaluation. But for the most part these methods do not use quantitative methods—stunting efforts to systematically trace a project’s impact on beneficiaries. Projects should include both quantitative and participatory mechanisms for tracking change and project impact. Both quantitative and participatory methods are needed to assess a project’s impact on poverty. The monitoring and evaluation strategy can include random sampling to document the impact of certain components as well as a monitoring, evaluation, and information system that uses ongoing participatory evaluation methods to evaluate inputs and outputs. Projects can rely on systematic monitoring of inputs and outputs flowing through the organizations implementing the project.

Impact Evaluation can address:

• Does the program have impacts on participants
• Are impacts stronger for particular participant groups
• Is the program cost-effective relative to other options
• What are the reasons for a program’s performance
• How can the design or implementation be changed to improve performance

Complementary and ongoing participatory monitoring and evaluation, including a quantitative evaluation design, offer two clear benefits in the fight against poverty.

First, ongoing participatory evaluation enables just-in-time inputs into management decisions at the local and central levels. Such inputs promote better management and more responsive alignment of project inputs to achieve project objectives. The dynamic nature of most projects during implementation requires a responsive mechanism so that inputs are adjusted to changing environments—while also providing a means to verify impact on beneficiaries as it occurs.

Second, the quantitative methods used in household and community surveys are important for assessing a project’s impact and for verifying the determinants of that impact. Such assessment and verification is especially essential during a project’s midterm review, when inputs can be realigned as needed. Such efforts can also provide more information for the next phase of the project.




1 Adapted from IFAD M&E Guide, 2002 download the full version from


sources:

http:// www.dfid.gov.uk/research.
http://www.ifad.org/evaluation/guide/index.htm .
UNDP:SelectingIndicators.http://www.undp.org/eo/documents
/methodology/rbm/Indicators-Paperl.doc
http://www.undp.org/eo/methodologies.htm
Case studies are valuable sources of information and appear on the DFID website (www. dfid.gov.uk) and R4D – DFID’s research portal (www.research4development.info).
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/evaluation/
The World Bank, The Impact Evaluation
Thematic Group, PREMnet., (http://prem)