Iranian Women Deserve Better Laws!

Shirin Ebadi, Rooz Online:

The Iranian academic year will start in a few days. For the past few years, women have filled two thirds of the capacity of the universities in Iran. This is an undeniable reality that the majority of highly educated people in our society are now women. In simple words Iranian women are more educated than men. The next question of course is do women correspondingly enjoy equal rights to match their educational achievements.

Based on official statistics, the unemployment rate among Iranian women is three times that of men. Iranian women are deprived from key political and social posts. They are virtually banned from taking posts at the presidential, ministerial, governor etc levels. Even the presence of a few women in the Iranian parliament does not fundamentally change the facts or the provisions of the Constitution. Imposed discrimination in the Constitution is a reality. For example, based on the Islamic Criminal law passed in 1998, the value of a woman's life is half of a man's. So for example in a car accident, when a man and a woman are inflicted a similar damage, a woman receives only half of a man's financial compensation. In many cases women do not have the right to legal testimony. Their testimonies in the court are worthless. In those cases where courts accept a women’s testimony – out of mercy - two women witnesses equal one man witness. READ MORE

In the Iranian constitution, men are officially allowed to have more than one wife. An Iranian man is allowed to divorce his wife without offering legitimate reasons to the court while filing for divorce is very difficult for women and in some cases impossible. The list of differences goes on.

In short, Iranian women are suffering from unfair laws. Iranian women do not deserve laws and regulations that limit them unjustly. Despite efforts to justify these unfair laws with Islamic interpretations, these interpretations are merely personal ideas of powerful religious leaders.

Religious laws have been reviewed in Iran in the past. The same should be done with laws and regulations pertaining to women and their status in society.

The existing legal discrimination between Iranian men and women overlooks women's genuine positions and is not compatible with Iranian culture and the just spirit of Islam. These laws should be changed.

Shirin Ebadi is an attorney and human rights activist who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in human rights and especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children. She was the first ever woman judge in Iran. Today, she is an outspoken reformer and regular contributor to Rooz.