March 4, 2011
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT – On this International Women’s Day, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) celebrates the accomplishments, perseverance and dignity of Iranian women, and calls on the Islamic Republic of Iran to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day, which is celebrated internationally on March 8. This year, women in Iran continue to live under laws and practices that discriminate against them, including laws relating to education, marriage, child custody, inheritance rights, and criminal punishments. Women are still sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. The Iranian regime continues to ruthlessly suppress women’s rights activists. It continues to harass, arrest and imprison women for merely collecting signatures for the Million Signature Campaign, demonstrating on behalf of their sons and daughters outside of prisons, and engaging in other non-violent activism. Many women’s rights activists have been forced to flee the country.
IHRDC calls on the Islamic Republic to discard its discriminatory laws that violate international law as set forth in the CEDAW. Adopted by the United Nations in 1979, the CEDAW entered into force in 1980. In 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, proclaimed the entitlement of all people to equality before the law and to the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction of any kind, including any distinction based on sex. The CEDAW was the culmination of 30 years work to codify international legal standards specifically for the equal treatment of women.
A total of 185 States, including many of Iran’s neighbors – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, Iraq and Azerbaijan – have ratified the CEDAW. Ninety States have ratified the treaty’s Optional Protocol, which gives individuals and groups the right to bring complaints of violations of their rights directly to the Commission and request investigations. However, the Iranian government has failed to ratify the treaty.
“Let there be no doubt that Iranian women want and deserve to enjoy equality and freedom,” said Renee C. Redman, the Executive Director of IHRDC. “Gender inequality is a matter of concern for both Iranian men and women, as it affects all families. The Islamic Republic must ratify CEDAW and establish its international standards at the national level.”
IHRDC is a non-profit organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. Its staff of human rights lawyers and researchers produce reports on the human rights situation in Iran. The Center’s goal is to encourage an informed dialogue among scholars and the general public in both Iran and abroad. The human rights reports and a database of documents relating to human rights in Iran are available to the public for research and educational purposes on the Center’s website. www.iranhrdc.org.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt was Chairperson of United Nations Commission on Human Rights that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first international document that sets out fundamental human rights to which all people are entitled. Since its proclamation by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1948, the Declaration has inspired human rights and women rights activists throughout the world. The Universal of Human Rights is Eleanor Roosevelt’s greatest legacy.
Roosevelt believed that “(i)t isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” Although she did not have an academic background, she held a deep belief in human dignity and worth. At the end of World War II, Roosevelt, the widow of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, intensified her activities for peace and human rights. She was the only female member of the Commission for Human Rights and played an instrumental role in drafting the Declaration. The day she submitted the Declaration for review to the United National General Assembly, she said:
“We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 [of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man], the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries.”
Roosevelt served as the first United Sates representative to the United Nation Commission on Human Rights until 1953. She continued to lead an active political and social life, delivering lectures at universities until her health rapidly declined after she was struck by a car. She died at her home in New York on November 7, 1962 at age 78.
Simin Bahbahani is a well-known modern Iranian poet and an icon of Iranian women for her critical opinions. Bahbahini is known for her Ghazals style poetry, sonnet-like love poems. Her poetry deals with freedom, rights and poverty, reflecting her concerns for the outcast, neglected and marginalized. She has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature.
شعرى از سیمین بهبهانی به مناسبت روز جهانی زن
