These days beside the news about the coronavirus, wars, and poverty another news surprised the entire civilized world.
‘The Islamic republic of Iran is becoming a member of the UN’s Commission on Women.’ This unbelievable act which has its roots in pollical issues has shocked many people around the world.
And this is while the United Nations in its report of March 19, 2021 on the ‘Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran’ about the situation of the women in Iran wrote:
“Notwithstanding these improvements, the Special Rapporteur remains deeply concerned at the persistent discrimination against women and girls in public and private life, enshrined in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and within law and practice. Articles 20 and 21 of the Constitution guarantee equal protection of men and women before the law and the State’s undertaking to secure women’s rights. However, the provision of these rights is subject to “the Islamic criteria”, which have been implemented by the authorities in a manner that violates and undermines women’s dignity and fundamental human rights, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, as established in the State’s international human rights obligations. The Government stated that the Islamic criteria were defined and could be updated according to societal needs.
“Concern is expressed that the legal age for a girl to marry in the Islamic Republic of Iran is 13 years, with even younger girls allowed to marry paternal and judicial consent… Failure to increase the marriage age undermines measures aimed at protecting women and girls from domestic violence and negatively affects education and employment prospects.
“The criminal justice system discriminates between men and women regarding payment of diya (blood money). The Penal Code states that the amount of diya paid as compensation for a female victim is half that of a male (art. 550).
“…The State effectively devalues the worth of a woman’s life to half that of a man, and consequently makes women more vulnerable to crime.”
Nonetheless, there is much more, which is beyond the scope of this short text, but these excerpts are enough to imagine what is going on Iran and among the women living in that country.
Dissidents and Iran watchers are asking why is the United Nations discrediting itself and its commissions? Why are they ignoring their own report?
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of United Nations Watch, in this tweet on 21 April 2021 wrote: “No joke: UN elects Iranian regime to top women’s rights body. Electing Ayatollah Khamenei’s Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.”
This is an accurate description of this event. Because the basis of the growing fundamentalism today, at least in the Middle East, whose main feature is its anti-woman nature, is derived from the ideology of the founder of the Islamic Republic.
The amazing thing is that the main duty of this is commission is Improving gender equality and women’s empowerment.
“Imagine the model of ‘gender equality’ which is implemented in Iran becomes worldwide through the United Nations and this specialized commission. What a paradise the world would become”, an Iranian opposition website stated sarcastically. Here is what it would entail:
- In line with gender equality, all schools in the world must segregate gender.
- All prestigious universities in the world should work in two separate shifts for men and women.
- All buses in Washington, Paris and London should have a gender separation wall and women should sit in the back.
- All metros in the world must allocate most of its wagons to the men and only the last wagon should belong to the women.
- In the direction of gender equality, the chador should be obligatory as a superior hijab for all women in the world. The police of all countries are obliged to set up ‘Enjoining good and forbidding wrong’ inspections, and, of course, arrest unveiled women while preserving their human dignity.
- For the sake of gender equality, all fathers in the world should give their daughters half of their sons’ inheritance.
- Let all the female politicians of the world respectfully step aside and give their place to the young male forces.
- To preserve the dignity of women, all women’s commissions in the countries’ parliaments should be renamed to the Family Commission (Iran has no women commission, instead the regime is calling it the family commission), and men should be elected spokespersons for these commissions.
- Allow girls to enter only in certain female university disciplines. Do not allow women to suffer ‘oppression’ by enrolling in men’s and unnecessary fields. All these universities can follow the example of Al-Zahra University of Tehran. Male professors should not be allowed in female student classes and vice versa.
