Iran: Information on possible punishment for an Iranian woman who had a child out of wedlock

Information on this specific subject is currently unavailable to the DIRB.

The oppression of women in Iran dates back a very long time (Afshar 1985a, 48). The Iranian revolution of 1978 and the subsequent Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini brought in a period that violated women's rights (Higgins 1985, pp. 477-494). The Family Protection Law was suspended and the Sharia (Islamic law) based on the Koran and the teachings of Mohammed, was re-established. As a result, women's right to employment, freedom of association and freedom of choice were compromised (Ibid.).

The regime of Ayatollah Khomeini forced women to abandon most of their public functions and to go back to the "sphere of domesticity and invisibility" (Afshar 1985, 58). In that kind of social and political climate, men were allowed to marry up to four women on a permanent basis and to have an unlimited number of temporary wives. Men could also divorce their wives at will but women had to convince the clerics who preside over the family courts that "the marriage ..... imposed an unbearable burden and an unacceptable demand on [them]" (Ibid.). The same source states that child custody was also granted to men. A woman could keep her son only until the age of two, her daughter until the age of seven. "Even in the event of death of the father, custody is retained by his male relatives" (Ibid., 57).

The Islamic revolution of Khomeini has also ensured that any kind of conjugal relationship outside of Islamic law is an act of adultery (Gaudio and Pelletier 1980, 10). Whoever is involved in that kind of relationship is therefore committing adultery and must be punished according to the laws of Islam (Ibid.). The same source also states that children born out of such a relationship are "illegitimate" and have no right to inheritance. According to Iranian Islamic law, the right form of a sexual relationship must be through marriage, and it is imperative for a Muslim woman to marry (Ibid., 18).

The Islamic Quassas laws further reduced the status of women, and these laws recognised men's right to life and death but not women's (Afshar 1985, 58).

For further information on the status of women in Iran, which might have a bearing on the specific subject you are addressing, please refer to the Responses to Information Requests IRN0710, IRN2764, IRN2909, IRN3090, IRN4011, IRN6615, IRN10679 and IRN12142. These documents are available on the REFINFO database at the regional documentation centres. Additional and/or corroborative information on the requested subject could not be found among the sources currently available to the DIRB in Ottawa.

References

Afshar, H. 1985a. "The Legal, Social and Political Position of Women In Iran." International Journal of the Sociology of Law.

. 1985b. "Women, State and Ideology in Iran." Third World Quarterly.

Gaudio, Attilio and Rénée Pelletier. 1980. Femmes d'Islam (Ou le Sexe Interdit). Paris: Denoel/Gonthier.

Higgins, Patricia J. 1985. "Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Legal, Social, and Ideological Changes." Signs. Vol. 10, No. 3.

Attachments

Afshar, H. 1985. "The Legal, Social and Political Position of Women In Iran." International Journal of the Sociology of Law, pp. 47-59.

. 1985. "Women, State and Ideology in Iran." Third World Quarterly, pp. 256-278.

Gaudio, Attilio and Pelletier, Rénée. 1980. Femmes d'Islam (Ou le Sexe Interdit). Paris: Denoel/Gonthier.

Higgins, Patricia, J. 1985. "Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Legal, Social, and Ideological Changes." Signs. Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 477-94.