The last time I visited my birth country of Iran was in August, 1999. I wouldn’t dare go back now – the government there has an appetite for dual nationals and journalists, which makes me a hot commodity. When I was there, I was overwhelmed at the level of propaganda urging women to wear the mandatory veil. The signs were everywhere: On the sides of buildings; in taxi cabs; in restaurants; on electric poles; even on the highways.
The world watched in horror nearly three years ago when the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan and made women their first order of business. They reinstituted the mandatory covering of women and systemically deprived them of education and work; women are, issued a decree about the mandatory veiling of women and dissolved the Family Protection Act of 1975, which gave women the right to divorce and restricted polygamy for men. They also lowered the marriage age for girls from 18 to 9.
This week marks the 45-year anniversary of the systemic firing of all female judges in Iran. Nobel Peace Prize laureatetold me recently that at the time, in 1979, she was one of 27 women working as a judge in Iran. “I was presiding over a trial when an agent walked into my courtroom and handed me a piece of paper. I realized that the incident we were all waiting for was happening.” Since that day of dissolution, not a single woman has given a binding ruling in an Iranian court.
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