Inside Iran’s Laws Restricting Women’s Rights

The Iranian propaganda machine is pumping out content on social media claiming that repression in Iran is fake and that women are much freer under the regime than in America. This is, of course, nonsense. Below is a summary of the laws restricting women. Ironically, liberals, including women, are repeating the regime’s talking points, while in Iran, women have been subjected to arrest and physical assault in retaliation for forbidden social media posts, with some receiving jail time plus as many as 50 lashes.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran adopted a civil code based on conservative Sharia law, systematically stripping women of rights they had held under the monarchy. Under the current Constitution, the rights of women and girls are equal to those of men only when deemed in conformity with “Islamic criteria,” a term with no legal definition that has served as the basis for codifying gender-based discrimination across every area of Iranian life.

Iran is one of just six UN member states not party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and in December 2022, it became the first nation ever expelled from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

After the revolution, the marriage age for girls was dropped to 13. Girls as young as 9 lunar years, approximately 8 years and 9 months, can be married with the permission of a father and a judge, at which point they become subject to all laws governing women in marriage, including the Civil Code’s obligation to fulfill the sexual needs of their husbands.

Regardless of age, a woman requires the consent of her father or paternal grandfather to enter into a first marriage, a restriction that does not apply to men.

Men hold the unilateral right to divorce their wives without proving any grounds. Women must navigate a court process and prove hardship, such as abuse or abandonment, to request a dissolution. A woman who cannot obtain her husband’s consent may pursue a Khul’a divorce, but only by surrendering property to him in exchange. In divorce cases, mothers retain custody only until the child reaches age seven, after which custody reverts to the father.

A mother forfeits custody entirely if she remarries, even if the father is deceased. Legal guardianship, controlling a child’s passport, medical decisions, and major legal matters, remains with the father or paternal grandfather regardless of custody arrangements.

Under Sharia-based inheritance law, a daughter inherits half of what a son receives. A widow is entitled to one-eighth of her husband’s estate if they had children, or one-fourth if childless, with the remaining assets going to the husband’s family.

Rape is not classified as a distinct crime under Iranian law. The only recognized sexual assault offense is zina (unlawful sexual intercourse) without consent, defined as forced penetration up to the point of circumcision and only when the perpetrator and victim are unmarried, explicitly excluding marital rape.

The term “circumcision” here is a legal definition drawn directly from Islamic jurisprudence. Under Iranian law, the offense applies only if penetration reaches the point of circumcision, meaning the glans of the penis beyond the foreskin. Penetration that does not reach that anatomical threshold is not legally recognized as an offense, even if forced.

Sex within marriage is considered consensual by definition. A woman who refuses sexual relations with her husband can have her nafaqeh, her maintenance allowance covering housing, clothing, and food, legally withdrawn. A woman’s testimony carries half the legal weight of a man’s, and if she cannot prove rape, she may herself be prosecuted for zina, which carries penalties of flogging or death.

Under Article 630 of the Penal Code, a husband who witnesses his wife in consensual adultery may lawfully kill both parties.

In November 2021, the Guardian Council ratified the Youthful Population and Protection of the Family law, criminalizing abortion, contraception, and voluntary sterilization except in narrow cases where the mother’s life is at risk, and even then requiring judicial and medical board approval. UN experts denounced the law as a violation of international human rights standards.

Same-sex relations are a capital offense. Under Articles 238 and 239 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, female-female sexual contact carries a penalty of 100 lashes, and a fourth conviction results in the death penalty. Same-sex marriage has no legal basis under the current system.

Women are prohibited from becoming the Supreme Leader or serving as judges with authority to issue final verdicts. The Guardian Council has disqualified every woman who has attempted to run for president, citing the constitutional requirement that the president be a rijal, a political and religious personality the Council interprets as exclusively male.

Women make up roughly five percent of parliament. A husband retains the legal right to forbid his wife from working in any job he deems contrary to family interests or his own dignity, and less than 14 percent of Iranian women participate in the labor force.

A married woman cannot obtain a passport or travel abroad without her husband’s written permission. He may also determine where the couple lives and restrict her employment. Women cannot obtain motorcycle licenses and are banned from riding motorcycles or riding pillion. The Supreme Leader issued a fatwa prohibiting women from cycling in public on the grounds that it attracts the attention of men, and prosecutors and local authorities routinely detain female cyclists and confiscate their bicycles.

Women are also prohibited from riding horses in public. Women are banned from singing or dancing solo in public. They have historically been barred from attending men’s sporting events as spectators, with only partial and contested relief granted under FIFA pressure for certain soccer matches.

In late 2024, Iran passed the Law on Protecting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab, imposing the death penalty, flogging, prison terms, travel bans, and restrictions on education and employment for women who defy compulsory veiling. The law was temporarily paused in December 2024 following public outcry, but has not been repealed.

There is no legal right to protest for any Iranian citizen, but women face disproportionately harsh consequences. Hundreds were killed, tortured, or imprisoned during the 2022 Woman Life Freedom protests, and several female activists have been executed. Speaking out publicly against government policy, religious law, or compulsory hijab is treated as a national security offense. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is currently imprisoned for her activism.

Women are not formally banned from primary or secondary education, and Iranian women have outnumbered men in university enrollment in recent years. However, universities impose gender quotas capping female enrollment in fields deemed unsuitable for women, and the Ministry of Education periodically bans women from specific university majors. Under directives issued in 2025 and 2026, universities may expel or bar students who fail to comply with mandatory hijab laws.

Girls reach the age of criminal responsibility at 9 lunar years, compared to 15 for boys, meaning girls as young as nine can face prosecution carrying sentences of lashes or death. The blood money paid for the wrongful death or injury of a woman is half that paid for a man. For decades, women could not pass Iranian nationality to foreign-born spouses or children.

A 2019 law partially addressed this by allowing women married to foreign men to apply for citizenship for children under 18, a limited and belated concession.

Severe, systematic, and institutionalized gender-based discrimination pervades every aspect of life for women in Iran, codified in law and entrenched in practice, regardless of age, background, or status.

The propaganda says the West has lied about Iran and that women in Iran are free. However, after reviewing Iranian law regarding women, it seems that Western media has downplayed how repressive the regime is and how few rights women have.

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