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Denying Equality and Basic Rights for Women

Last Updated: March 6, 2006

Iran's constitution dictates that a woman's life is worth half a man's. Women in Iran are second-class citizens, officially segregated from men in many aspects of public life. Women are required to use a separate and dramatically inferior hospital system. State security officers forcibly remove female spectators from soccer games. For a young Iranian woman caught at a co-ed party can mean arrest and possibly worse. Women are regularly hanged in public for "acts incompatible with chastity." Those accused of adultery are buried up to their necks and stoned to death. In January of this year, a teenager was sentenced to death for killing a man who was trying to rape her. The campaign against women in so many aspects of life has had a profound social impact - in a recent survey 25% of Iranian women admit to being unhappy with their gender.

Copyright © 2006 - Harvard Middle East Review - HAMSA