Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence


Memorandum from Dr Phyllis Starkey MP

  1.  In October 2002, I led a delegation of women parliamentarians on a five-day visit to Iran as guests of the Women's Faction of the Majles. The members of the delegation were Dr Phyllis Starkey MP (Labour), Sandra Gidley MP (Lib Dem), Julie Morgan MP (Labour), Angela Watkinson MP (Conservative) and Baroness Pola Uddin (Labour) from the House of Lords. The focus of our visit was to meet with our homologues in the Majles, and with a variety of women and women's organisations, to understand more about the actual situation of women in Iran today. Since it will be difficult for the Select Committee to give the same attention to this issue, or to have the same access that we had to women's groups, this submission summarises the main conclusions from our visit.

  2.  Our general impression from the range of people, both men and women, that we met in government, the Majles, business, education, NGOs and journalism was of a society in transition; seeking a solution that would reconcile Shia Islamic tradition and practice with a modern democracy and market economy. Iran is still a very socially conservative society and this itself puts a brake on the speed of some reforms, particularly in relation to crime and punishment. In addition, the conservative religious authorities often use their powers under the constitution to obstruct the process of reform.

  3.  Women are disadvantaged by the current legal system, particularly in relation to divorce, and in court a woman's testimony is valued at half that of a man. Economically women are at a disadvantage compared with men. However, issues affecting women's position in society have a high profile in government and in the Majles, and have a high priority with reformist Parliamentarians. The women members of the Majles (13, or 5.5% of the total) were proud of the fact that this session of the Majles has been dominated by legislation to improve the legal and economic status of women, including legislation to improve women's economic position after divorce or being widowed. The leader of the Women's Faction, Mrs Moussavari Salman Manesh, has been given the task of going through all existing legislation to ensure it does not discriminate against women. The government is keen to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, but the Council of Guardians was delaying this because of concerns that the convention might require all education to be co-educational.

  4.  President Khatami has set up a Centre for Women's Participation under Mrs Zahra Shojaie, his women's advisor. The Centre has a budget 60-fold greater than previously allocated to women's policies. Its annual report documents the current participation of women and girls in Iranian society, which is impressive. Education is free but girls and boys are educated separately. Girls have good access to education including in the rural areas; the percentage of girls receiving primary education has increased from 80% to 96% in the last five years; 63% of university students are women and 34% of university lecturers. There is a problem of graduate unemployment but this affects men as well as women. The number of women business executives has increased 5.5% in the last five years, and the Association of Iranian Women Journalists is headed by the very impressive Dr Jamileh Kadivar who is a member of the Majles. There are a number of women in high positions in the government including Mrs Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice-President and Head of the Department of the Environment and Mrs Hastei, Head of Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  5.  The forward programme of the Centre for Women's Participation sets out a range of targets for improving women's situation across the board; in education and training, health, economic activity, and power and decision-making. It includes an extensive anti-poverty strategy with encouragement for women's co-operatives and start-up small business grants targeted at women. The Centre is beginning to tackle the difficult topic of violence against women through education of the general public, the police and the courts and establishment of women's refuges.

  6.  We visited a number of NGOs concerned with women and children. Amongst the services provided was a home for abandoned children that had an impressive success rate at placing the children for adoption. Other organisations provided training and small loans to help women breadwinners to support their families (the women were mainly widows or had husbands who were in prison, unable to work or who had disappeared). We visited a charity providing therapy for children with disabilities and campaigning to change public attitudes to the disabled, the Society for the Protection of the Socially Disadvantaged (SPSD). It was clear that current state provision leaves many people and many needs unmet. Most of these NGOs were providing services that in the UK would be provided by the state. For example we saw a five-year-old girl on her first visit to the SPSD who could barely walk, she had been handicapped since birth and her parents appeared to have been unable to access any help for her from other sources, until now.

  7.  What was very impressive about the NGOs we visited was the quality and drive of the people leading them, the readiness of volunteers to staff them and the significant sums of private money raised. Levels of donations for charitable work, in line with the Islamic tradition of the obligation to give to charity, can be very significant. Ex-patriate Iranian communities are an additional source of charitable funds.

  8.  A major area of concern for us was human rights abuses, and in particular the use of capital punishment including in cases of adultery. We had very useful discussions with officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights Division, and with the Secretary General of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Mr Ziafar. Elements within the judiciary have been attempting to extend the range of physical punishments but these have been overturned on appeal. Arguments are being developed in the Majles and the Human Rights Commission against certain punishments on the grounds that they are contrary to Islamic law and not effective in deterring crime. This approach has led to a moratorium on stoning for adultery, and moves to legislate to outlaw stoning altogether. Although there is debate in Iran about public executions, there is no domestic public pressure to end capital punishment for murder and other serious crimes.

  9.  Overall, we retained concerns about abuses of human rights and the crab-like progress towards real democracy, because the conservative religious authorities frequently obstruct reform. However, our delegation returned convinced that Iran was moving in the right direction and that the British policy of constructive engagement was connect. British Parliamentarians can contribute to this through establishing and maintaining links with the Iranian counterparts.

Dr Phyllis Starkey MP

27 January 2003



 
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