Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

One hundred years have elapsed since the issuance of the Royal Proclamation (that endowed Iran with a constitution and a representative regime). During the past hundred years, the codified laws for the human rights of women in our country have been disregarded. Since that time, Iranian women have struggled very hard to achieve equal human rights. However, this unjust trend continues. Today, we see that legal deadlocks and discriminatory laws have created many difficulties in women's lives in our society. This undermines the position of women both in the family and in the greater society. These discriminatory laws have led to the passage of other unjust laws and regulations, such as the "Temporary Working Contract Law" under which women suffer the most.

On June 12th of last year (2005), we, the women [of Iran], expressed our objection to all laws that undermine women's rights. But our rightful demands go /unanswered. On that day we announced: "Until achieving our human and equal rights, with support of each other, we will use all peaceful means in order to express our protest against the existence of these humiliating laws with a clear and loud voice." Therefore, on the anniversary of June 12th, we gather again and announce our specific demands. We strongly believe that failure to achieve these basic demands has created serious dead-ends in our lives, whether we be Fars, Kurd, Baluch, Tork, Arab, or women of any other ethnicity. Therefore, we announce our demands once again with a loud and clear voice and we declare:

1- We want the same right to divorce as men. It's clearly declared in our laws that "A man can divorce his wife any time that he wishes to." But women's right to petition for a divorce is restricted to such a few specific situations that they can end up pleading their cases before the courts for 10 years in order to obtain a divorce. Furthermore, experience has shown that the law allowing women to protect their rights in clauses included in a prenuptial agreement not only cannot alleviate women's problems, it has in many cases become the source of tensions and misunderstandings in the early stages of the marriage.

2- We want the prohibition of polygamy and we demand that the prohibition of polygamy be clearly stated in law.

3- We demand equal rights in marriage. This includes: the abolishment of the law requiring a woman to obtain her husband's permission to work outside the home; an increase in the marriage age from 13 to 18 years of age for girls and boys: revocation of the stipulation that a girl must receive permission from her father and grandfather before marrying; and abolishment of the law of condescension (which, among other things, requires a woman to obtain her husband's permission to travel in and out of the country, gives a man sole authority over the family, and makes the citizenship of a woman and her children contingent upon the citizenship status of her husband).

4- We want fathers and mothers to have equal child custody rights. According to our civil law, a mother can never be her child's guardian. Even when the father or the grandfather is absent, custody of the child does not go to the mother. She can only be her child's caregiver. Hence, we demand guardianship [of our children], the right to manage [our children's] finances , the power to make decisions about [our children's] education and our place of residence, the right to exit the country, the ability to voice our opinion and to exercise authority over our children's health care, and an equal say in other issues related to parenting. [For] mothers too should have the right to be parents and guardians of their children.

5- We want that the age of criminal responsibility for boys and girls changed to 18 years of age. This means that if a nine-year-old girl or a — fifteen-year-old boy commits a crime, the law does not punish her or him as an adult. Because, according to the conventions of human rights and child rights, everyone under 18 years of age is considered to be a child. 6- Finally, we want the speedy abolishment of "temporary working contracts," which destroy employed women's lives more than they do the lives of men. And we want the future careers of men and women who are hired to be guaranteed by official working contracts.

And ultimately, we declare that if there is no response to our righteous demands, we will continue our peaceful protests.