Name: Reza*
Interviewing Organization: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)
Date of Interview: April 4, 2024
Interviewer: IHRDC Staff
This statement was prepared pursuant to an audio interview with Mr. Reza. There are 4 paragraphs in the statement.
The views and opinions of the witness expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.
*Pseudonym assigned to protect the witness’s identity.
Statement
- I am self-employed and hold a bachelor’s degree. We got married in 2017. We have a six-year-old daughter. The divorce took place in January 2021.
- The reason for our separation, and why my wife sought enforcement of her mehrieh [a marital financial entitlement owed by a husband to his wife], was that I went bankrupt. I had to close my shop and no longer had the financial means to continue. I was financially hit very hard. I owed money to everyone. Every day, another creditor would come after me for payment. As soon as I paid one person, someone else would start pursuing me for money. The cheques I had received from others were not being honoured, so I could not pay my own creditors. I was in the chicken and meat distribution business.
- At first, my wife was not planning to separate. She separated because of pressure from her family. She said that they wanted her to seek enforcement of her mehrieh, but that she did not want to, and all the usual things people say. There were proceedings relating to inability to pay, maintenance, compensation for domestic services, and so on. She recovered maintenance for both the past and the present down to the last Rial (Iranian currency). She also received 12 million Tomans as compensation for domestic services. As for the mehrieh, I was ordered to pay two Bahar Azadi gold coins upfront and then one coin every ten months. I applied for a declaration of inability to pay and hired a lawyer, which resulted in the instalment order being reduced to one coin every ten months, as I couldn’t afford to pay all seventy-two coins. Eventually, my wife filed for divorce. I can’t remember when exactly she sought enforcement of her mehrieh, but first she filed the mehrieh claim, then the maintenance claim, and finally the divorce petition. She was coordinating everything closely with her lawyer. Her mehrieh consisted of seventy-two Bahar Azadi gold coins. There was nothing else.
- I proposed a settlement. She would say, “Fine, just divorce me, and I won’t ask for anything else.” I didn’t attend the mehrieh At the first hearing, the judge granted her the divorce, and I didn’t appeal. As soon as the divorce decree was issued, she went after the mehrieh. Then I ended up in prison. I spent three months in prison. I don’t have any other cases involving her. The only ongoing obligation is the one million Toman child maintenance payment. I had fallen three gold coins behind on the instalments I was required to pay. While I was in prison, my relatives took out loans and paid her the money so I was released. I am still paying the mehrieh in instalments, along with my child’s expenses. Since last year, I still haven’t been able to pay the mehrieh. As of now, I’m still two gold coins behind.