Reform and Regression in Iran: Advocating for Change of Family Laws before and after the Revolution

Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani of the Feminist School Interviews Mahnaz Afkhami

Family laws in Muslim-majority societies determine most crucial rights for women, and often serve as a barometer for women's overall social status. Across Muslim-majority societies women are advocating for reform of these laws to accommodate their changed family and social roles, and to reflect their heightened awareness of their individual rights.

Last month, a coalition of women's rights activists in Iran successfully stopped passage of a highly discriminatory "Family Protection Bill" in the Iranian parliament. The regressive bill, which is now undergoing revision in the parliament's judiciary committee, in many ways reflects the volatile history of women's legal rights in Iran. The personal status laws enacted in Iran in 1967 and revised in 1975 ensured women's equal rights in marriage and divorce, enhanced women's rights in child custody, increased minimum age of marriage to 18 for women and 20 for men, and practically eliminated polygamy. Soon after the revolution of 1979, even before the country passed a constitution or had a legally instituted government, the leader of the revolution annulled the Family Protection Law. The bill now returned to the judicial committee was meant to codify the reversal of the pre-revolutionary achievements of women and legalize the subordinate position of women in the family. A coalition of women's groups mobilized opposition to this bill and following a gathering of women in the parliament, the bill was returned to committee for further study.

Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani of the Feminist School and a founding member of the One Million Signatures campaign spoke recently with Mahnaz Afkhami, secretary general of pre-revolution Women's Organization of Iran, about the historical context of family law advocacy in Iran, interactions of women's movement activists and policy makers and government, and the role of patriarchy in promulgation of the laws that govern relations in the family and between family and society. This unprecedented dialogue offers valuable insights for legislative advocacy in changing political and social circumstances and provides an example of how internal/external engagement and national/international communication can be used to the benefit of women.

Read the interview in English at http://www.femschool.info/english/spip.php?article158, or in Persian at http://www.femschool.net/spip.php?article1392.

Additional WLP Resources on Family Law Reform

• Legislation:
  • Comparative Overview of Family Law Provisions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
  • Model Family Law
• Publication: Guide to Equality in the Family in the Maghreb (in Arabic, English, French, and Persian) offering human rights, sociological, and religious arguments for legal reform.
• Video: Family Law Reform in Morocco