WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 57-Page 2014
Report:
Thirty-five
Years of Forced Hijab: The Widespread and Systematic Violation of Women’s
Rights in Iran points
out over the past ten years more than 30,000 women have faced arrest throughout
Iran due to hijab laws. Iran is the first country where the state forces all
girls and women to observe uniform hijab laws. Without a clear definition of
hijab, Islamic Republic laws consider women who lack “Islamic veil” in
“public” as criminal and punishable by imprisonment and fines. The call for
enforced hijab was first raised 35 years ago by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder
of the Islamic Republic, just 24 days after the revolution was declared
victorious, on 7 March 1979. However, given the resistance of a considerable
percentage of Iranian women, it took three years of tension and violence to
enforce this law.
Although
Islamic Sharia laws deem hijab compulsory at age 9, Islamic Republic requires
all girls to begin observing hijab laws at the outset of primary education at
age 7. It also imposes hijab laws on women of all faiths regardless of their
sacred teachings on the issue of hijab. Furthermore, it is used as a tool for
segregation and imposition of a wide range of limitations on women including
violations of fundamental rights, including the right to education, work and movement.
The report
documents over past 35 years many women have been deprived of education,
employment, driving, travelling by air, access to public medical services as
well as cultural and recreational facilities because of their hijab. It also
refers to instances involving arrest and other violations of the articles of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child through impositions of hijab rules on
girl children.
In addition,
the report embodies a comparative look at the Islamic Republic’s efforts to
enforce hijab laws in contradiction to its international commitments. As a
signatory to the International Bill of Rights and the Convention on the Rights
of the Child Iran is duty bound to implement the articles. However, many of its
domestic codes and procedures on hijab violate the rights enshrined in these
documents.
The report
goes on to point out how a high number of women are not only exposed to insult,
harassment and physical abuse at the hands of the authorities, but that they
also face detention and various forms of torture, including lashing. The report
describes the process of arrest and prosecution of women based on the charge of
improper Islamic hijab and unjust sentences. It also presents an overview of
the psychological abuse where in some cases women have faced death or suicide.
However, it also highlights an important historical fact that despite 35 years
of violent enforcement measures, Iranian women continue to resist hijab laws
and through their daily struggles provide an example for women in other Muslim
majority countries, in particular those in transition, to demand their rights
and freedom.
In addition,
based on official statistics, reports by human rights organizations and victim
statements instances involving harassment, such as expulsion of women from
governmental offices, refusal to grant promotion on the grounds of lacking
proper Islamic hijab, banning access to education, summoning female students to
disciplinary bodies and expulsion from dormitories continue unabated.
Furthermore, despite many promises there has been no tangible improvement since
Mr. Rowhani took office.
“Thirty-five
Years of Hijab” offers a number of recommendations and highlights the need for
the international community to shine a spotlight on forced hijab as a symbol
and means of advancing serious and systematic human rights violation of more
than half of Iran’s population. JFI calls on the Islamic Republic to lift the
mandatory hijab laws and instead safeguard women’s rights to education, work,
participation in cultural life, access to public services, and freedom of
movement. JFI also calls on the United Nations, in particular the Special
Rapporteur on Violence against Women, the United Nations Working Group on
Discrimination Against Women look into gender-based discrimination in policies
and practice; and the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, to include
the issue of “forced hijab” in Iran in their agenda and use all means at their
disposal to force the Islamic Republic to lift the law on mandatory hijab.