WUNRN
Full Amnesty International 56-Page
Report to UN Human Rights Committee for consideration during Review of the
Report of IRAN:
UN Human Rights Committee 103rd
Session: Scroll down to IRAN.
The Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its State parties.
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SHADOW REPORT
ON IRAN FOR
UN HUMAN RIGHTS
COMMITTEE REVIEW IN 103rd SESSION
Extensive Section on: Discrimination
Against Women in Law & Practice
Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to:
Immediately and unconditionally release anyone held solely for
freely and mutually
agreed sexual relations and review all relevant legislation to
ensure that no one may be held
solely on such grounds;
Ensure that men and women have full equality in contracting
marriage, and that no one
should enter marriage except on the basis of his or her free
choice and with his or her full
agreement, including by raising the age of marriage for girls, and
to equalize it with that of
boys at an age at which they can be expected to express free and
full agreement to marry and
by prohibiting the practice of plural marriage in
Ensure there is complete clarity over the requirements for
contracting and registering
temporary marriages and to ensure that temporary marriage cannot
be used to circumvent the
prohibition on early and forced marriage;
Ensure that the laws provide for equal rights in law to men and
women in initiating and
obtaining a divorce and in divorce settlements;
Ensure that women and men have equal rights in decision-making
regarding the future of
their children at all ages, taking the best interest of the child
as primary consideration, and
that decisions regarding custody are taken in all cases by
qualified individuals who are
obliged to act in the best interests of the child and without discrimination;
Ensure that men and women enjoy equal access to employment and
that wives cannot be
prevented from seeking employment by their husbands.
Abolish nationally enforced dress codes which have a
discriminatory impact on women
and repeal all laws imposing requirements that individuals dress
or do not dress in a certain
way (unless the restrictions imposed are only such as are
demonstrably necessary and
proportionate for a legitimate purpose, as stipulated under
international human rights law,
and are not discriminatory) and to take effective measures to
protect women from violence,
threats, or coercion by family members, community or religious
groups or leaders in order to
compel them to wear particular forms of dress;
Revise the law to include a separate offence of rape in the Penal
Code, which does not
allow the imposition of the death penalty. This provision must be
in line with current
international criminal law provisions, in particular the Elements
of Crimes of the InternationalCriminal Court, and existing international human
rights law and standards on equality and physical and mental autonomy. The
criminal law should define rape and other forms of sexual violence as sexual
conduct in any instance in which the agreement of the woman or girl involved is
not truly and freely given. Freely given agreement is agreement without force, threat
of force, or coercion of any kind. Prosecutors should be instructed to take cases
forward even in the absence of a complaint by the individual concerned, if
there is other
evidence to indicate that a rape or act of sexual violence has occurred.
Ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) and, in accordance with Article 5(a) of CEDAW, take
measures to modify social and
cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to
eliminating prejudices and
practices based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority
of either sex or on stereotyped
gender roles.