The Reading Warehouse

As the world is seeking to achieve gender parity by 2030, the Iranian mullah regime is moving in the opposite direction. "25 Years After Beijing, the Status of Women in Iran," is a report compiled and prepared by the Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

It is essential to understand that answering questions on the improvement of the status of women in Iran and the measures adopted by the government in this regard as contained in the UN CSW's NGO Guidance for National Parallel Reports are absolutely irrelevant and not applicable to the so-called Islamic Republic of Iran. The answer to most of the questions should have been a simple NO or NONE.

One must also notice that the Iranian regime is not transparent in releasing figures and statistics. There is no effective system of collecting statistics in Iran. Officials usually speak by percentages and not actual numbers. When and if they do, they present different figures on the same issue. Sometimes, the same officials give contradicting figures. Occasionally, the statistics collected have been released ten years later.

The clerical regime ruling Iran is inherently a misogynistic regime lacking the slightest intention to eliminate discrimination against women. The regime opposes the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals simply because the SDGs seek to promote gender equality.

As a result of this outlook, discrimination against women is entrenched in the law and built within the structure of the government and society.

Iran's fall into the lowest group of the World Economic Forum's gender gap index is due to the laws and structural restrictions imposed on Iranian women.

CEDAW, BPfA, moving in the opposite direction

The regime has refused to implement the Beijing Platform for Action or join the CEDAW. Why?

Because the articles outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) starkly contrast the fundamental principles and goals pursued by the Iranian regime, as well as the clerical regime's Constitution, Civil Code, Islamic Penal Code, and other laws and legislations.

All proposals to reform these discriminatory laws have either failed altogether (as was the case with the bill to increase the age of marriage), or were drastically overhauled losing their original purpose (as was the case with the bill initially proposed to protect women against violence).

The Iranian regime has not made any achievements in implementation of the BPfA and CEDAW and SDGs, rather, it has moved in the opposite direction, stripping Iranian women of more of their most basic rights and creating more restrictions for them.

One of the most obvious examples is the security forces' stepped-up use of violence in the past couple of years in dealing with women who oppose the mandatory Hijab (veil) as recently as in July 2020.

This is the most common form of violence against women in Iran which is "state-sponsored."

Emphasis on Equity instead of Equality

The regime's officials have always stressed on the word "equity" as opposed to "equality" in all UN conferences and forums, including in the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Under the Iranian law, women are considered half-humans. Women's testimony, blood-money, and inheritance are always half of men's. Women are discriminated against in holding leadership position as a president or a decision-making position as a judge. Accordingly, women are discriminated against in every realm of law and justice.

This is why the regime refuses to use the terms "equality" and "gender equality," rather, they use the word "equity."