Government Announces General Family Policies

Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice president of Iran, has communicated the 'General Family Policies' approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for implementation to the Vice Presidency for Women and Family Affairs. The Mehr News Agency reported on Tuesday, October 8, that Jahangiri has sent the document of 'General Family Policies' following a previous directive from the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and an earlier letter from the President regarding this matter. The 'General Family Policies' were conveyed by the Supreme Leader to the heads of the three branches of government and the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council in September of this year. One of the sections of this document emphasizes the 'motherhood and homemaking roles of women' and the 'fatherly and economic roles of men,' highlighting the support of government agencies for this categorization. In this section, government agencies are asked to assist women and men in fulfilling the 'roles and missions' designated for them by this document. The document also requests responsible officials to launch a nationwide movement to 'encourage' female heads of households to remarry. This document defines the primary functions of families in Iran based on an 'Islamic model' and limits the main roles of women in society to traditional functions. 'Encouraging and facilitating' the marriage of female heads of households and providing legal, economic, and cultural support for them are other points of the mentioned policy. Another section of this document, considering the significant increase in divorce rates in Iran, is dedicated to 'preventing social harm and factors destabilizing the family institution, especially the issue of divorce.' This section emphasizes the 'continuous identification of factors leading to divorce and family breakdown and cultural promotion against divorce' to 'compensate for the damages resulting from it.' The rising divorce rates in Iran, which sociologists attribute to various reasons, have raised concerns among Islamic Republic officials. 'Effective confrontation with the soft war of enemies aiming to undermine and distort family relations' is another focus of the Supreme Leader in the General Family Policies. Accordingly, the mentioned document includes a 'prohibition on broadcasting programs that disrupt family values' and 'combating elitism, materialism, and manifestations of Western culture.' 'Creating a healthy environment and adhering to Islamic relations between men and women in society' is aimed at presenting an Islamic family model and 'promoting an Islamic-Iranian lifestyle.' This document also emphasizes 'creating necessary mechanisms to enhance the overall health of families, especially reproductive health and increasing childbirth.' In recent years, the Supreme Leader has repeatedly criticized population control policies in Iran and called for an increase in childbirth. He stated on October 11, 2012, that 'one of the mistakes we made was that population control should have been stopped since the mid-1990s.' The population control policy in Iran after the revolution was initiated with slogans like 'two children are enough' and 'better life, fewer children' after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and well-known clerics also supported it. However, with the change in the Supreme Leader's view on this policy, responsible institutions and agencies were also mandated to encourage families, especially women, to have more children and to provide facilities in this regard.