Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape is illegal and subject to strict penalties, including death, but it remained a problem. The law considers sex within marriage consensual by definition and, therefore, does not address spousal rape, including in cases of forced marriage. Most rape victims likely did not report the crime because they feared official retaliation or punishment for having been raped, including charges of indecency, immoral behavior, or adultery, the last of which carries the death penalty. Rape victims also feared societal reprisal or ostracism.
For a conviction of rape, the law requires four Muslim men or a combination of three men and two women or two men and four women, to have witnessed a rape. A woman or man found making a false accusation of rape is subject to 80 lashes. In June international media reported on the kidnapping and gang rape of at least 41 women and girls in the city of Iranshahr, Sistan va Baluchistan Province, which has a predominantly Baluchi population. According to the reports, authorities initially tried to deny the cases, leading to local protests. Reports indicated that some of the alleged perpetrators had ties to local security forces. Social media users expressed their anger and sought support for the victims online through an #Iranshahr girls campaign. Some of the social media participants, including Abdollah Bozorgzadeh, were reportedly harassed and arrested for their online activism.
The law does not prohibit domestic violence. Authorities considered abuse in the family a private matter and seldom discussed it publicly.
A 2017 CHRI report referenced a study presented at the nongovernmental Imam Ali Foundation’s May 2017 conference in Tehran on violence against women in the country, according to which 32 percent of women in urban areas and 63 percent in rural areas had been victims of domestic violence. A government official was quoted in the report saying that 11,000 cases of domestic abuse had been registered by the National Welfare Organization. In January, according to media reports, the state-run Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) apologized after an alleged relationship expert and marriage counselor advised domestic violence victims during a television broadcast to kiss their husband’s feet, leading to a large social media backlash in the country. Some users reportedly mocked the advice and characterized it as “nonsense” and “scary.”
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law criminalizes FGM/C and states, “the cutting or removing of the two sides of female genitalia leads to diyeh (financial penalty or blood money) equal to half the full amount of diyeh for the woman’s life.”
Little current data was available on the practice inside the country, although older data and media reports suggested it was most prevalent in Hormozgan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan Provinces.
Other Harmful Traditional Practices: There were no official reports of killings motivated by “honor” or other harmful traditional practices during the year, although human rights activists reported that such killings continued to occur, particularly among rural and tribal populations.
The law reduces punitive measures for fathers and other family members who are convicted of murder or physically harming children in domestic violence or “honor killings.” If a man is found guilty of murdering his daughter, the punishment is between three and 10 years in prison rather than the normal death sentence or payment of diyeh for homicide cases.
Sexual Harassment: The law addresses sexual harassment in the context of physical contact between men and women and prohibits physical contact between unrelated men and women. There was no reliable data on the extent of sexual harassment, but women and human rights observers reported that sexual harassment was the norm in many workplaces. There were no known government efforts to address this problem.
Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.
Discrimination: The constitution provides for equal protection for women under the law in conformity with its interpretation of Islam. The government did not enforce the law, and provisions in the law, particularly sections dealing with family and property law, discriminate against women. Judicial harassment, intimidation, detention, and smear campaigns significantly challenged the ability of civil society organizations to fight for and protect women’s rights.
Women may not transmit citizenship to their children or to a noncitizen spouse. The government does not recognize marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men, irrespective of their citizenship. The law states that a virgin woman or girl wishing to wed needs the consent of her father or grandfather or the court’s permission.
The law permits a man to have as many as four wives and an unlimited number of sigheh (temporary wives), based on a Shia custom under which couples may enter into a limited-time civil and religious contract, which outlines the union’s conditions.
A woman has the right to divorce if her husband signs a contract granting that right; cannot provide for his family; has violated the terms of their marriage contract; or is a drug addict, insane, or impotent. A husband is not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife. The law recognizes a divorced woman’s right to part of shared property and to alimony. These laws were not always enforced.
The government actively suppressed efforts to build awareness among women of their rights regarding marriage and divorce. According to a CHRI report, in September the IRGC Intelligence Organization arrested Hoda Amid, a human rights attorney, and Najmeh Vahedi, a prominent sociologist and women’s rights activist, three days before they were supposed to host a workshop about the country’s marriage laws, which they had organized with a legal permit. One of the purposes of the workshop was to teach women how to expand their rights with legally binding prenuptial contracts.
The law provides divorced women preference in custody for children up to age seven, but fathers maintain legal guardianship rights over the child and must agree on many legal aspects of the child’s life (such as issuing travel documents, enrolling in school, or filing a police report). After the child reaches the age of seven, the father is granted custody unless he is proven unfit to care for the child.
Women sometimes received disproportionate punishment for crimes such as adultery, including death sentences. Islamic law retains provisions that equate a woman’s testimony in a court of law to half that of a man’s and value a woman’s life as half that of a man’s. According to the law, the diyeh paid in the death of a woman is half the amount paid in the death of a man, with the exception of car accident insurance payments.
Women have access to primary and advanced education. According to 2017 media reports, women gaining admission to universities nationwide outnumbered men by 13 percent. Quotas and other restrictions nonetheless limited women’s admissions to certain fields and degree programs.
As domestic media reported during the year, women’s participation in the job market remained as low as 16 percent. Women reportedly earned 41 percent less than men for the same work. Unemployment among women in the country was twice as high as it was among men.
Women continued to face discrimination in home and property ownership, as well as access to financing. In cases of inheritance, male heirs receive twice the inheritance of their female counterparts. The government enforced gender segregation in many public spaces. Women must ride in a reserved section on public buses and enter some public buildings, universities, and airports through separate entrances.
The law provides that a woman who appears in public without appropriate attire, such as a cloth scarf veil (hijab) over the head and a long jacket (manteau), or a large full-length cloth covering (chador), may be sentenced to flogging and fined. Absent a clear legal definition of “appropriate attire” or of the related punishment, women were subjected to the opinions of various disciplinary and security force members, police, and judges.
Throughout the year government and security forces cracked down on peaceful nationwide protests against dress restrictions.
In January several women in Tehran and Isfahan protested the compulsory hijab law by standing on platforms, publicly removing their headscarves, and waving them like flags. They were following the example of Vida Movahed, who performed a similar act of defiance in December 2017 on Revolution Street in Tehran. Pictures of Movahed--who disappeared for a month during detention by security forces at an unknown location--performing the act went viral online. According to reports, Movahed was sentenced in March to 24 months in prison but was released on bail.
In February authorities arrested 29 women in Tehran for peacefully protesting the mandatory dress law. Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted downplaying the significance of the protests, calling them “childish,” “emotionally charged,” and fomented from outside the country. One of the protesters, Narges Hosseini, a sociology student, was arrested and in March sentenced to two years in prison. Maryam Shariatmadari, a computer science student, was sentenced to one year in prison for “encouraging corruption by removing her hijab.” According to media reports and Amnesty International, Shaparak Shajarizadeh fled the country after being arrested on multiple occasions, subjected to torture and beatings, and released on bail in April; she reportedly was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for peacefully protesting. According to reports, other women and some men were arrested throughout the country for similar activities.
In March, according to an HRW report, police arrested approximately 35 women who had gathered outside Azadi Stadium in Tehran seeking to watch a soccer match. In June, however, authorities allowed women and men into the same stadium to watch a live streaming of the national football team competing at the World Cup, and in October close to 100 women were allowed to attend a live match.
As noted by the former UNSR and other organizations, female athletes have been traditionally barred from participating in international tournaments, either by the country’s sport agencies or by their husbands. There were, however, cases throughout the year of female athletes being permitted to travel internationally to compete.