The situation in Iran, for women, is an interesting one. Women in Iran are incredibly liberated in the sense of education, health care, and the like, but the women are still subject to old laws on marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance. One woman, Sussan Tahmasebi, went to her native country and stayed for ten years. She started the One Million Signatures Campaign, spreading a petition asking the government to pass and change laws for more equal rights to be awarded to women. The job of the people who work for her organization is to go into public places and ask normal Iranians to sign the petition. The women are very educated in Iran, holding jobs in medicine and politics, yet they are still subject to these seemingly primitive laws. In 2006, arrests began, but this only raised their resolve.
The human rights violated here have to do with right to liberty, freedom from forced marriage, free speech, and to think freely. It seems obvious that there should be something done in this case. Imprisoning people for showing an opinion and trying to peacefully see it fixed? It seems absurd. Everything that occurs in this situation is against some human right that is guaranteed to all people.
To me it seems ridiculous to give these women seeming economic liberty, but limit them socially by regulating their marriages, divorces, custody, and inheritance. They are educated women who understand that they are being treat unfairly. The government tries to justify it through religion, but that does not even work if one looks at the Koran deeply enough. It is violating these women's right to be a person and run their own lives. They were even imprisoned for trying to change it in the most peaceful way possible. What can a petition do? Is it a threat? I think not. I hope that one day Iran can take a step forward and equal out their women's rights.
Do you think that Iran is a paradox? Are women's rights as important in such a society as most would consider them? Is it religiously or patriarchically based prejudice?
If history is any example, they won't be able to contain the progress of women's rights. Once you educate and incorporate a population in to the workforce, it is only a matter of time before their political rights necessarily have to follow.
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