Men Have the Right to Have Concubines; Women Do Not

While the most recent limitations imposed on Iranian women who wish to travel outside the country have not yet hit the full house of the Majlis, the women’s faction of the assembly says that even harsher restrictions for women’s travel are on the way. Should the restrictions envisioned in the bill turn into law, single women younger than the age of 40 will need approval for their foreign travel and in addition, the approval of “a guardian” or an Islamic judge as well. Some Majlis women representatives have staunchly defended these provisions and have even gone as far as saying they are in the interest of women and families.

What Men Do Outside the Country Does not Concern US!

The new passport bill before the Majlis was originally presented to the house by the government in March. Its introduction reads the reason for the new bill is to make it “conform to the political realities of the day.”

By mid-November, the spokesperson of Majlis’ national security and foreign policy committee announced that it had added new provisions for single women who intended to travel outside the country to the passport bill before it was sent to the full house for debate and vote. These changes appear not to be fully supported by the administration either as an official from the Center for Women’s Affairs and Families has said that no restrictions have been outlined for issuing passports to single women over the age of 18 or women who are considered mature by a court judgment. The position of the members of the national security committee of the Majlis is that “passports will be issued to women under the age of 40 only upon the official approval of their guardian or a cleric judge.”

But the spokesperson of the women’s faction of the Majlis goes even further and says the restrictions are not sufficient. Laleh Eftekhari explains, “This bill should not be based on the age of women alone; women who travel outside the country for unspecified reasons must also be included in the provisions of the bill.” She continues, “In recent years restrictions on young women’s travel outside the country have been lifted, but some people misuse this situation which has created problems and has hurt women’s image. So it has been decided that women who do not intend to misuse the situation can travel outside the country, on the basis of conditions and rules.”

She did not elaborate or explain on the problems that have been created for the regime or the misuse of the situation.

So the next question is who must decide the purpose of women’s foreign travels.

The deputy chairman of the women’s faction in the Majlis provided some insight when she spoke to Etemad newspaper. Shahla Mir-Galavi Bayat said, “The reasons why Iranian young women and women leave Iran are pretty clear. Some leave to pursue their education, others to participate in scientific conferences, still others are business women, and some leave to visit their family members. In these cases invitation letters are involved and some specific documents. But some trips do not fit into any of these categories and involves a small group of women.” She then claimed that in the past these latter individuals had created problems for some countries resulting in protests. “Some of these women who did not have a clear purpose for their trip abroad had created problems for the Iranian community outside the country resulting in protests by the host country’s foreign ministry. These cases are clear and need to be investigated. Tourist travel by women of this age group fall into trip categories with unclear purposes and do not fall into the purposeful category. I think parents of these women have the right to know where their daughters are going and for what purpose. This bill does not create problems for any specific section of society.”

When the representative of Saveh was asked why such restrictions were not envisioned for men, and whether it was not possible for men to have trips with questionable or not clear purposes, Bayat replied, “We must accept that there are some religious differences between men and women. There are some religious restrictions for women that do not exist for men. Men can meet some of their needs through temporary marriage ( sigheh ) while women cannot. It is true that men must observe many issues but they do not have the restrictions that women have. These restrictions exist in other countries as well. We as Muslim women must observe these rules and traditions.”

Bayat also claimed that the bill would actually “protect” women’s rights. “As a physician I believe that there are physiological differences between men and women and these differences result in that we provide more restrictions for women, which is in their interest,” she said. “What men do in other countries is their business,” she declared. Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s only woman Nobel Prize winner has called the provisions of the bill “violent.” She expressed regret that such legal violence was expanding against women. Elahe Koolai, a former Majlis woman representative also has criticized the bill calling it male chauvinistic and a remnant of the past.