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What Women Want
Mehrangiz Kar – 3/19/2007
What the Iranian women want is not very complex. They want certain legal reforms that would ensure a less discriminatory kind of life for them. Without further due, let me cite a few instances of the kinds of laws Iranian women protests against.
1. Iranian women want to increase the age of legal responsibility for both men and women to 18. Currently, girls are legally responsible from age 9 and boys from age 15, and they will be punished as adults if they commit a crime.
2. Men should face punishment for murdering their partners on accusations of infidelity. Currently, they do not.
3. Women can no longer tolerate the fact that a woman’s Diyya [Blood money, a fine paid in Islam to the next of kin of a person who was killed intentionally] is half that of a man’s. In Islamic Penal Code, it has been specified that if a man kills a women and is sentenced to death, the family of the woman must pay half of the murderer’s Diyya to his family for him to be executed, since he is worth twice as much as she is.
4. If a father or grandfather murders his child or grandchild, he will not be executed. He only has to pay the Diyya. But, according to Iranian Law, the punishment for murder is execution. It is thus obvious that the legislator regards the father as the owner of his child’s life. If a mother murders her child, she will indeed be executed.
5. Men have unlimited rights with regards to divorcing their wives. When a man decides to divorce his wife, he is not required to provide any reasons to the court. In fact, the court is not even authorized to ask him for a reason. Men have absolute rights in matters related to divorce. Meanwhile, women lack such divorce rights; they have to provide convincing reasons and documents to the court. In most cases, women are able to get a divorce only if they forego all of their financial rights and, in some cases, pay their husbands.
6. Women of all ages should provide proof of their father’s approval to court to get married for the first time. Men, on the other hand, can marry without the approval of their fathers after the age of 15.
7. The punishment of stoning, which is levied against married women or men that commit adultery, is a thorn in the pride and dignity of Iranian men and women. Since, due to various reasons, more women than men are exposed to stoning, women are adamant in their requests for the removal of this punishment from the penal code.
8. The Islamic Republic’s Constitution allows women to serve in the Majlis [“Parliament”], but it does not allow women to serve in important official positions that require electoral campaigns, such as the presidency.
What the Iranian women want is not very complex. Is it?
This article first appeared in the Online Journal RoozOnline on March 19th 2007.
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