Iran's Women Fight For Rights, Including The Right To Divorce

nytimes.com:

TEHRAN -- In a year of marriage, Razieh Qassemi, 19, says she was beaten repeatedly by her husband and his father. Her husband, she says, is addicted to methamphetamine and has threatened to marry another woman to "torture" her.

Rather than endure the abuse, Ms. Qassemi took a step that might never have occurred to an earlier generation of Iranian women: she filed for divorce.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[LuckyLeif]

We'll be praying for you sisters.
http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/treatment-of-arab-women/

[slaxx]

please stop posting your spam.

[PuddinPie]

How can we show her our support?

[slaxx]

if you read the article, there are links to some websites.

[1dogs2]

So when are the women of our good friend and ally Saudi Arabia going to demand their human rights? Saudi women are among the worst-treated in the world in terms of personal freedom and human rights.

[roshni]

They are not my good friends or allies. They are buddies of the Bush Crime Syndicate. Quite a different matter.
Oh yes, the good Bush family is busy spreading "democracy" in Iran, but their best buddies and financiers are the Saudis.

[1dogs2]

Exactly.

[javagirl322]

....the husband AND his father beat her...so where was her brother and father??

[PWM]

In her society once she marries her brothers and father have no legal right to get involved.

[BosieO]

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS WOMEN ALL OVER THE WORLD....UNITE! YOU ARE STRONGER!~

[Rog49Thomas]

The Quran gives women the right to divorce.

One would think in the Islamic Republic of Iran - there would be no issue.

That is, of course, unless someone has confused Islam with patriarchal folkways - which have as much to do with religion as the 700 Club.

[harriettubman]

Iran will start blaming divorce on the U.S. They don't want their women to be happy. Just cover yourself up, shut your mouth and do as he says.

[Mollabaji]

A "VOA" commentator by any chance? How disgusting!

[mergina]

WOMEN OF IRAN. LEAVE YOUR OPPRESSIVE MEN WITH THEIR PARTS DANGLING IN THE WIND. YOU ARE BETTER THAN THEM. THE WORLD WILL EMBRACE YOU. LEAVE THAT OPPRESSIVE WORLD FOR A BETTER ONE.

[roshni]

Nice thought, but HOW?

[Mollabaji]

Read this article with care because you will find that the headline is again sensationalization while the content shows how extensively women's status and rights have improved since the 1979 revolution. Women in Iran DID NOT HAVE the right to divorce, could not travel outside the country without the written permission of their husbands or fathers, only 15% of university students were female, there were no free birth-control clinics for women, there was no sex-education for couples who plan to marry, and, and, and.......But they could wear mini-skirts and smoke! They were "modern".
So now 70% (not 60%) of univeristy studens are women. Show me a country in the so-called "modern" Western world that can match that. The right to divorce on the books belongs to men except in a couple of situations (interestingly, if a husband fails to satisfy the wife's sexual needs is one), but in practical terms many women are given the right of divorce by the judges (usually a cleric) as the statistic show that one of out 5 marriages end up in divorce, mostly by women.
Now go back to the article and then read the misleading headline.

[roshni]

Yes, Ahmadinijad is such ana advocate for feminism!
BARF!

[quindy]

Before 1979 Iranian women had the right to divorce their husbands. It was the 'revolution' that made their situation miserable. I personally know Iranian women who fled the country in the early '80s to escape prosecution because they were divorced.

[Mollabaji]

quinday,

Total nonsense you may have heard from your "Iranian women" you know. there has never been prosecution of women "because" they were divorced. I stand by what i said about women's rights during the pahlavi period.