Legal contexts of violence against women in Iran
26-November-2021
Category: Uncategorized
25-November-2021
Newsgroup: Women –
Breathing in Confinement: On the occasion of November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women:
Since the designation of November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by the UN, women’s rights activists in various communities report on the situation of women every year. In Iran, despite efforts in this area, there are still reports of violence against women.
What can be categorized as violence against women encompasses a wide range of violent practices, from violating the legal and human rights by the government, to violent behaviors by the members of society. However, one of the lesser-known forms of violence is what experienced by women in legal centers. Given that being exposed to violence is one of the reasons women go to court, the violence they experience in the legal system is of particular importance.
What is happening to women in prisons and judicial centers can be called “gross violence against women in the name of the law”, which is less addressed. But in recent years, what women have reported from prisons and the courts has highlighted the need to address the “legal violence against women.”
Although prisons, detention centers, and judicial centers in Iran are reminders of the persecution of all those who have dealt with them for whatever reason, the persecution is much more severe for women.
Women in prisons are not only victims of harassment and violence, but their human identities are completely and openly ignored, and their most basic rights are violated.
The arrested “woman” is considered a criminal from the very beginning and is harassed with the most offensive curses. This is the harassment that women suffer from only because they are “women,” not because of the type of crime the might have committed or the reason for their detention.
Being targeted of the humiliation, the abusive words, and highly offensive remarks with sexual connotations begin for women from the very moment of their arrest.
In the prevailing patriarchal culture, a woman who is arrested is naturally convicted, and according to the agents, the judge and the interrogator, the probability that the arrested woman is innocent is zero! They ignore that every accused has rights that must be respected.
This report is based on the narratives of “women” who, in their own words, “lost their identities after being taken to detention centers and prisons!”
A 29-year-old woman with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, arrested on murder charges, describes the torture she endured at Shapur Police Station. The torture that made her so thin that she bears no resemblance to her photos before the arrest. “The constant physical torture or being hung from the ceiling did not bother me as much as the offensive and humiliating remarks of the officers,” she said. “The approach of the security guards was more horrible to me than being hung from the ceiling!” “I was somebody before being arrested. But under psychological pressure and insults, I found myself an instinctive killer and a worthless creature. It was as if I had become someone else,” she added.
It is not easy for someone who has experienced such a horrible trauma to describe these scenes. Undoubtedly, the effects of these tortures make it very difficult for a prisoner to return to a normal life.
Another very painful problem for detained women is being rejected by their families and the loss of their support in these critical situations. In the first encounter with the “arrested woman”, the family considered themselves “disgraceful” as they know the judgments of the patriarchal society, and the arrested woman is blamed for the disgrace. Most women detainees have experienced such harassment as a result of a culture that has promoted by the government’s ideology.
Another example is the case of an Afghan woman who was arrested on charges of complicity in the murder of her husband. She was gang-raped 15 times in detention center probably because of her beautiful face. She could not defend herself against the charge. Her husband’s family took her young child and her own family also rejected her. There was no evidence that “F” had committed a crime and she was eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison. But what she endured in detention center was much more horrible than receiving a 15-year prison sentence.
Women are subjected to violence regardless of the nature of their charges or the reason for which they have appeared in the court. One of these acts of violence was described by “Z” during the divorce proceedings. In this case, too, despite the fact that the woman did not commit a crime or made an illegal request, she was repeatedly targeted the offensive remarks of the judge. Since as per the retrogressive beliefs of the judges and the religious laws of Islamic Republic, for a woman, separation from her husband is considered the beginning of committing crimes.
In addition, women who have gone to court to report domestic violence such as being beaten by their husbands, or to complain for having been raped, have almost all been humiliated and blamed by the judges. One of these women said she was told in the court that she had been raped because of her own moral problems. She continued that sexual demands by law enforcement officers prevented her from pursuing her complaint.
Attention to women’s experience shows that violence against them in legal centers, society or at their homes is rooted in patriarchal laws. Laws that not only provide the basis for various forms of violence against them , but also leave them unprotected and may cause intensified suffering for victims of violence.
It is important to mention that there are no therapist or counselor to help the abused women to restore their mental health and to get through the horrific traumas they endured in prisons. This system is the cause of these traumas and does not even want women to get rid of this situation. These women experience psychological breakdown during their years of imprisonment.