Ebtekar: Rouhani's Order to Allocate 30% of Management Positions to Women

The Vice President for Women and Family Affairs announced that Hassan Rouhani has ordered that "30 percent" of management positions be allocated to women, stating that "we have four years to achieve this goal." Masoumeh Ebtekar's remarks come at a time when the allocation of 30 percent of management positions to women was one of Rouhani's electoral promises, and in recent months, no overall statistics on the appointment of women to management positions have been published. On Tuesday, February 12, during a meeting titled "Achievements of the Islamic Republic in the Field of Human Rights," Ebtekar noted that women's literacy has increased from 50 to 55 percent in the early years after the 1979 revolution to 95 percent currently, adding that 60 to 65 percent of university students and 27 percent of university professors in Iran are women. She expressed hope that with the increase in women's education, they would have a greater presence in the parliament and city and village councils, but added that in the area of women's employment, there are "many challenges" and "given that the society is patriarchal, it accepts women's presence in the labor market with difficulty." According to the Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, this challenge exists in both the public and private sectors, and despite the reform of many laws in this area, there is still a "need for extensive dialogues" on this issue. Ebtekar mentioned negotiations in this regard with religious seminaries and added that in addition to the bill on "prohibiting violence against women," which is currently being "finalized" in parliament, the government is also completing another bill in this area. She stated that despite this, there are "multiple challenges and obstacles that cannot be ignored." Although Masoumeh Ebtekar did not specify the details of these challenges and obstacles in Iran regarding the prohibition of violence against women, existing laws derived from Islamic Sharia are among these challenges and obstacles. According to these laws, women in Iran are deprived of the right to divorce, need permission from a guardian or husband to travel abroad, and custody of children after the age of seven is granted to the father. While efforts are being made to increase the marriage age for girls in Iran, according to the latest changes to Iran's civil law, although the minimum marriage age for girls is 13 and for boys is 15, marriage below these ages is possible with "guardian permission" and "court approval." In this regard, Parvaneh Salahshouri, head of the Women's Faction in parliament, stated in October of this year that they have faced "obstacles" in increasing the marriage age for girls in the law. Salahshouri emphasized that the Women's Faction is trying to bring the proposal to increase the marriage age for children to parliament, adding: "This government is moderate, and this parliament is expedient. Therefore, passing such laws is not easy." Earlier, Saeed Piyavandi, a sociologist, in an interview with Radio Farda, referred to the existence of "symbolic violence in Iranian textbooks," stating that "this violence is perpetuated through a discourse that justifies discrimination and difference between men and women, and it is largely attempted to be explained, especially from a religious perspective, that the difference between men and women is natural and every society should accept or institutionalize it, thus participating in the reproduction of violence." Mehrdad Darvishpour, a sociologist residing in Sweden, also stated in an interview with Radio Farda that "when morality patrols beat women for improper hijab, it means they are exercising violence. When they impose gender segregation or psychological humiliation, such as questioning their makeup or prohibiting them from studying certain fields... the hijab itself is a form of violence imposed on women."