The Cruel Irony of Iran Joining the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women

On March 25, the Islamic Republic of Iran began its four-year term as a new member of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) — “the principal global intergovernmental body dedicated to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment” — after being elected by secret ballot last year. It joins 45 other commission states that, according to the United Nations, will be “play an instrumental role in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women,” sparking outrage among Iranian and international human rights activists alike.

The country’s inclusion into the Commission was particularly shocking given that, in 2020, just the year before, the UN secretary-general reported that the “situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran remains of serious concern, owing to persistent and gross human rights violations,” including noting, “persistent discrimination against women, girls, and minorities.”

This isn’t the first time the UN body has elected a member state notorious for its women’s and human rights violations: in 2017, Saudia Arabia was elected to the CSW for the 2018 to 2022 term (where it sits today). “Why did the U.N. choose the world’s leading oppressor of women to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women?” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a UN-accredited watchdog for the world body, in a statement. A trove of Saudi diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks revealed that in 2015, Saudi Arabia bought a seat onto the UN Human Rights Council through money and bartering votes, and UN Watch suspects much of the same took place to secure the country’s seat onto the CSW, for which it was also elected by secret ballot.

“What kind of power does the Islamic Republic of Iran exert over our governments that not a single democracy from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea has dared to utter a word of condemnation over the misogynistic regime’s election to the UN's top women's rights body?” tweeted Neuer following Iran’s election into the body last year.

“This is surreal,” tweeted Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, also in reaction to Iran’s election. Nearly a decade ago, Alinejad ignited a social media movement across the country when she took off her hijab in defiance of the law. The hashtag #MyStealthyFreedom went viral, inspiring thousands of Iranian women and girls to oppose the law as well. “A regime that treats women as second-class citizens, jails them for not wearing the compulsory hijab, bans them from singing, bars them from stadiums, and doesn’t let them travel abroad without the permission of their husbands gets elected to the UN’s top women’s rights body.”

Indeed, the country has an egregious human rights record — and is notorious for its state-sanctioned oppression of women. Not only is women’s dress policed, but its lack of protections for women allows widespread gendered violence, from domestic violence to honor-based femicide.

A 2020 report by the Women’s Committee of Iran found that the country has the highest domestic violence rates against women worldwide. In 2018, the state-run ISNA news agency reported that 66 percent of Iranian women had experienced domestic violence — double the global average.

Last year, calls to end honor-based violence against women and girls were renewed after a man beheaded his 17-year-old wife — whom he married against her will when she was 12 years old — and paraded her severed head around the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Less than two years later, a father murdered his 14-year-old daughter in northern Iran after she ran away with her boyfriend. A report published in 2019 by a state-run newspaper estimated an average of 375 to 450 honor killings are carried out each year in Iran, mostly for infidelity, premarital sex, or simply having a boyfriend.

The country has been known to be equally hostile to the defense of human rights. In 2019, Iranian human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who had defended women for protesting the forced hijab law, was sentenced to 38 years in prison, 12 of them without the possibility for parole, and 148 lashes.

Since 2012, Iranian women and girls have been campaigning just for the right to watch and play sports alongside men. Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 26-year-old Iranian-British woman, was arrested in 2014 when she tried to attend a volleyball game in Tehran. In 2018, some women disguised themselves as men to sneak into a football match, risking arrest. And, in February of last year, Samira Zargari, head coach of Iran’s women’s ski team, could not join her team at the alpine ski championships in Italy — because her husband would not let her travel.

Iran’s formal Commission membership came just days before Iranian authorities blocked dozens of women from entering Imam Reza football stadium during a FIFA World Cup match. Videos emerged online of some police officers using excessive force and pepper spray to keep women out. The following day, the Iranian Football Federation issued a statement in response to public confusion emphasizing “the need to provide infrastructure and suitable conditions for the presence of men and women in a safe and secure environment​​.”

Even the simple act of women working out is controversial in Iran. “She who lifts weights is no woman,” said Iranian actor Dariush Arjmand in a televised interview last May.

Iran’s 1979 revolution changed the political and social fabric of Iranian society and led to significant regression of equal rights for women and girls. Since then, women and girls have been required by law to wear loose-fitting clothes and cover their heads in public, which also applies to girls of primary school age. But even if a woman’s head is covered, it’s up to Iran’s “morality police” to decide if it’s acceptable. In 2018, a woman — whose hair slightly showed underneath her headscarf — was verbally and physically assaulted by three women police officers. A viral video shows the woman being kicked to the ground by the officers, crying for help.

“Women in Iran are not counted as complete humans. Literally, two women count as one man,” said 34-year-old Iranian filmmaker Zahra Shahhatami, who grew up in Iran’s capital, Tehran, but now lives in Washington, D.C. “If a man wants to divorce you for any reason, he has the power. If someone rapes or beats you, the law does not stand behind you. If you aren’t wearing the hijab, the police won’t protect you. If a woman sleeps with a man who isn’t her husband, they can stone her to death. So, I have no clue what Iran wants to talk about in this [Commission] before giving women their basic rights.”

As women’s rights are under threat globally, from the United States to Afghanistan, many young women worry about what this move means and how it represents Iran on the global stage.

“We’re not allowed to go to stadiums to watch football. We cannot choose what to wear, which is a basic human right. Police will use violence against us if we do not wear the hijab — the hijab we never chose! Women are not allowed to sing. We’re not allowed to leave the country without our husband’s or father’s permission,” said 21-year-old Farah,* a university student in Tehran. “Iran has been censoring women’s voices, so why should I or any woman feel good about Iran becoming a part of the UN’s top women’s rights body?”

The same question plagues 18-year-old Daria,* also from Tehran, claiming that Iranian law is no different from Taliban rule in Afghanistan. “How is it that a country where the hijab is still mandatory and no woman or girl feels safe has been selected for this Commission?” she told Women Under Siege. “We are not safe, and now we are not heard.”

Saudi Arabia, which ranked 147 out of 156 on last year’s Global Gender Gap Index, is soon to complete its tenure on the CSW — replaced by Iran, ranked three points lower at 150th. If the CSW truly aims to “shape global standards on gender equality and empower women,” it must be held accountable for the countries it chooses to welcome. Iran’s admission sends a sobering and conflicting message to Iranian women and girls that their struggle for freedom and basic rights has been ignored by the top international organization in the world.

*Names have been changed.