Confronting Iran Is a Necessary Step to Protect Women and Christians

I recently met with a doctor who was born in Iran. With tears in his eyes, he talked about the horrible treatment of his people under the Ayatollahs. He talked about how young Iranians are trying to leave the country, so they do not have to live under that brutal regime.

His mother still lives there, and while he is worried about her safety, he is incredibly grateful to the U.S. and President Trump for intervening. The doctor said his people have been living in a nightmare for almost 50 years.

While the American news media focuses on protests in support of Iran and against the U.S. recent strike on Iran that killed its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, it is important for our country to understand the brutal regime Iran has been, especially for women. (RELATED: US Mosques Hold Memorials for Iran’s Supreme Leader)

The Iranian regime is one of the world’s worst abusers of women and religious minorities, including Christians. (RELATED: The Women Who Would Not Kneel)

Women have been treated as second-class citizens in nearly all areas of their lives. Women in Iran have been compelled by law to wear a hijab and are tightly surveilled to ensure they cooperate. Girls aged 13 can get married, though they can be forced into marriage at a younger age if their fathers permit it and the judicial system agrees. Men arrange their marriages, and in the case of divorce, women do not get custody of their children. This reminds me of the United States before Susan B. Anthony and the suffragists rallied to intervene.

Amnesty International reported about Iran’s human rights violations in 2024,

Authorities intensified their crackdown on women who defied compulsory veiling laws, the Baha’i community, and Afghan refugees and migrants. Thousands were arbitrarily detained, interrogated, harassed and/or unjustly prosecuted for exercising their human rights. Trials remained systematically unfair. Enforced disappearances and torture and other ill-treatment were widespread and systematic. Cruel and inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputation, were implemented. The death penalty was used arbitrarily, disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities and migrants. Systemic impunity prevailed for past and ongoing crimes against humanity relating to prison massacres in 1988 and other crimes under international law.

The Shia Islamic clerics who took control of Iran in 1979 associated Christianity with Western influence, which they see as a threat to Islamic rule. Christians are primarily banned from holding public office. All children, even Christians, are required to attend Islamic classes. Christian converts are especially persecuted for leaving Islam. Open Doors reports that “house churches are commonly raided, often followed by arrests, interrogations, pressure to inform on other believers, and long-term imprisonment…typically under charges of breaching ‘national security.’”

Iranians in the U.S. have celebrated the U.S. intervention. “Iranian New Yorkers say while they don’t want innocent civilians hurt, after 47 years of the Islamic Republic’s dictatorship and recent anti-regime protests which led to thousands of Iranians being killed, they feel outside intervention is the only way to enact change,” reported NBC New York.

Golnar, a 17-year-old Iranian girl, testified to the fact that she and others want change, saying,

When our rights are being violated, why should we not let others know what we are experiencing … I want to tell the world that the new generation of young people in Iran is just like all the other youth in the world. Our lifestyle, our information, our level of literacy and knowledge, and our thoughts and beliefs are like those of children in other countries around the world. We are not the same as the Islamic Republic. We do not believe in compulsory veiling. We are forced to wear the veil. If our society was a free one, we would like to not have compulsory veiling, we would like to have a secular state … We want to be like young people in other countries.

As the mother of an active-duty military officer, I abhor war, but there is a kind of insatiable evil that must be met with force. Iranians have lived in a country that has violated their human rights. Certainly, President Trump understands this and acted.

To the women and Christians in Iran: Now is your time. The U.S. stands with you. We are praying for you, and we love you.

Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of 7 Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide. concernedwomen.org

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