En un mundo globalizado, lo que le ocurre a las mujeres de Irán me ocurre a mi...
Iranian single women might need father's permission to go abroad
Parliamentary bill proposes requirement for single women to obtain official consent from their guardian to leave country
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| An Iranian woman shows writing on her hands saying women should have the same rights as men. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA |
Single women in Iran will need the permission of their guardians to be able to leave the country if a new bill secures enough votes in parliament.
At
the moment, unmarried women and men above the age of 18 can leave the
country if they have a passport but, according to the new bill, single
women would need official consent from their guardian, usually their
father.
Married women in Iran always need their husband's
permission to be able to hold a passport both under the current
legislation that dates back to the pre-1979 Islamic revolution and under
the proposed bill.
Husbands can ban their wives from leaving the
country at any time. Divorced women, however, are currently free to hold
a passport and leave the country without permission.
"Anyone
above the age of 18 can apply for a passport," Hossein Naghavi-Hosseini,
the speaker of the parliamentary committee on national security and
foreign policy told the semi-official Isna news agency. "According to
this bill … married women of any age need the written consent of their
husband to be able to have a passport and single women above the age of
18 will need the permission of their guardian." Single women whose
guardian denies them permission could dispute the decision in a court.
Since
the 1979 Islamic revolution, women's rights campaigners have struggled
to abolish the need for the husband's consent but the new bill, if
passed, would be a major setback.
Shadi Sadr, a prominent women's
rights activist and human rights lawyer, told the Guardian: "The
mentality behind these controversial laws is that women should have
owners, to give power to men to have control over women." The majority
of people inside Iran who were barred from leaving the country were
either women who did not have the permission of their husbands or tax
evaders, she added.
Mohammad Mostafaei, a well-known Iranian
lawyer currently living in exile in the Netherlands, called the need for
permission "the modern slavery". In an article published on the
opposition website Rahesabz he writes: "Only slaves at the time of
slavery needed permission to go here or there."
Barring citizens
from leaving the country is one of the ways the Islamic republic has
punished many of its critics in recent years. In a recent example, the
family members of the jailed award-winning lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh,
including her 12-year-old daughter, were subjected to a travel ban.
