Human Rights Watch calls for early approval of bill to protect women in Iran
Human Rights Watch urged Iranian authorities to urgently amend and submit to parliament a bill to “protect women’s dignity, safety, and security from violence,” which provides limited protections for survivors of domestic violence in Iran.
Human Rights Watch released a report on Friday, December 4, stating that Iranian women's rights activists have been working for this law for sixteen years and that the Iranian government has been working on this bill since 2013. According to the report, although the judiciary's review has been completed and the bill has been returned to the government, the government has been reviewing the bill since September 16, 2019.
Human Rights Watch called on Iranian authorities to commit to repealing discriminatory laws that expose women to domestic violence while enacting a bill to protect women.
Tara Sepehrifar, Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, noting that this legislation has been long delayed and that the parliament should not waste time in approving it, adding: “For decades, Iranian women have been waiting for a comprehensive law to prevent violence against women and prosecute abusers.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the bill, while containing positive provisions such as the establishment of a national inter-ministerial committee to design strategies and coordinate government responses to violence against women and requiring ministries and government agencies to adopt measures to assist women and prevent violence, still falls short of international standards. The report notes, for example, that the bill fails to criminalize some forms of gender-based violence, such as child marriage and spousal rape, and does not amend the criminal code’s narrow and problematic definition of rape, which explicitly excludes spousal rape.
This is while the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, issued by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, describes violence against women as "any act of violence or threat of such act, whether occurring in public or private life, that results in coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty."
The United States has consistently and in various cases condemned the violations of women's rights and the pressures exerted against them by the Iranian regime - including the exclusion from going to gyms, the lack of the right to choose what to wear, and various social and occupational discrimination - and has called for the full realization of women's rights.
Source: Voice of America
