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BEREICH | EVENTL. ABTEILUNG | WWW.ROTESKREUZ.AT ACCORD - Austrian Centre for Country of Origin & Asylum Research and Documentation Iran: Women, children, LGBTI persons, persons with disabilities, “moral crimes” COI Compilation December 2015 This report serves the specific purpose of collating legally relevant information on conditions in countries of origin pertinent to the assessment of claims for asylum. It is not intended to be a general report on human rights conditions. The report is prepared within a specified time frame on the basis of publicly available documents as well as information provided by experts. All sources are cited and fully referenced. This report is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed, or conclusive as to the merits of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Every effort has been made to compile information from reliable sources; users should refer to the full text of documents cited and assess the credibility, relevance and timeliness of source material with reference to the specific research concerns arising from individual applications. © Austrian Red Cross/ACCORD An electronic version of this report is available on www.ecoi.net. Austrian Red Cross/ACCORD Wiedner Hauptstraße 32 A- 1040 Vienna, Austria Phone: +43 1 58 900 – 582 E-Mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.redcross.at/accord Commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Division of International Protection. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author. Table of contents 1 Treatment of women .............................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Citizenship ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.2 Dress code and gender segregation ................................................................................... 5 1.3 Freedom of movement ...................................................................................................... 13 1.4 Social and economic rights ................................................................................................ 15 1.5 Marriage and divorce ......................................................................................................... 19 1.6 Temporary marriage .......................................................................................................... 30 1.7 Violence against women .................................................................................................... 34 1.8 Female genital mutilation (FGM) ...................................................................................... 42 1.9 Trafficking in women ......................................................................................................... 44 2 Treatment of children ........................................................................................................... 46 2.1 Legal status of children ...................................................................................................... 46 2.2 Child marriage .................................................................................................................... 50 2.3 Sexual abuse of children and violence against children .................................................. 52 2.4 Social and economic rights ................................................................................................ 55 2.5 Freedom of movement for children and minors who travel with mothers .................... 58 2.6 Child labour and street children ........................................................................................ 58 2.7 Trafficking in children ........................................................................................................ 61 3 Treatment of individuals of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities ................ 63 3.1 Legal situation and treatment by the state ...................................................................... 63 3.2 Treatment by members of society .................................................................................... 69 3.3 Sex reassignment procedures and post-operation treatment ........................................ 70 4 Treatment of persons accused of sexual and moral crimes ............................................... 72 4.1 Consensual intimate contact including pre-marital sexual relations and adultery ........ 72 4.2 Men’s transgressing of social mores ................................................................................. 77 4.3 “Honour crimes” ................................................................................................................ 78 5 Treatment of persons with disabilities ................................................................................ 82 Sources .......................................................................................................................................... 85 2 1 Treatment of women 1.1 Citizenship This section focuses on information relating to the citizenship of Iranian women who are married to non-Iranian husbands. For details regarding the citizenship of children from marriages between Iranian women and non-Iranian men, as well as general information on Iranian nationality law, please refer to our July 2015 COI compilation “Iran: Political Opposition Groups, Security Forces, Selected Human Rights Issues, Rule of Law”, section 8 (“Nationality and statelessness”) (ACCORD, July 2015, pp. 215-219). Semira N. Nikou, a senior research associate and doctoral candidate at the Public International Law and Policy Group at the Washington, D.C.-based American University’s Washington College of Law (WCL), noted in a January 2015 article for the Human Rights Brief, a student-run publication of the same college, that “[m]ost provisions with respect to citizenship are found in Book 2 – On Nationality of the Iranian Civil Code” (Nikou, 13 January 2015, p. 2). Article 987 of the Civil Code (Book 2) contains the following provisions relating to the citizenship of Iranian women who are married to non-Iranian nationals: “Article 987 - An Iranian woman marrying a foreign national will retain her Iranian nationality unless according to the law of the country of the husband the latter’s nationality is imposed by marriage upon the wife. But in any case, after the death of the husband or after divorce or separation, she will re-acquire her original nationality together with all rights and privileges appertaining to it by the mere submission of an application to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which should be annexed a certificate of the death of her husband or the document establishing the separation. Note 1- If the law of nationality of the country of the husband leaves the wife free to preserve her former nationality or to acquire the nationality of her husband, the Iranian wife who opts to acquire the nationality of the husband and who has proper reasons for doing so can apply in writing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry can accord her request. Note 2 - Iranian women who acquire foreign nationality by marriage do not have the right to possess landed property if this would result in the economic dominance of a foreigner. The finding of this issue is the responsibility of a commission comprising representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Interior Ministry and the Intelligence Ministry. The provisions of Article 988 and its note on persons who have renounced Iranian nationality and must leave do not apply to the above – mentioned women. (Amended in accordance to the Law on Amendment of Several Articles of the Civil Law, 1991)” (Civil Code, amended as of 2006, Article 987) Article 976, Section 6 of the Civil Code states that “[e]very woman of foreign nationality who marries an Iranian husband” is Iranian (Civil Code, amended as of 2006, Article 976). 3 An October 2015 article of the Oxford Human Rights Hub (OxHRH), a network based at the University of Oxford’s law faculty that deals with the exchange of ideas and resources on human rights issues, summarizes the provisions of Article 976: “In 2006, parliament amended Article 976 of Iran’s Civil Code to allow children born of Iranian mothers to apply for citizenship provided they fulfilled certain conditions. Under the 2006 law, children can apply for citizenship once they reach the age of 18 but they must have been born inside Iran and must have no criminal record. They also need to renounce any other nationality they hold. The amendments further require that the marriage of the parents has been registered in full compliance with the law.” (OxHRH, 8 October 2015) In a 2014 report written under the aegis of Tilburg University Law School’s statelessness programme, social scientist Jason Tucker noted that “Iranian mothers do not have the same rights as Iranian fathers to pass their nationality to their children” (Tucker, 2014, p. 7). The UN Secretary-General notes in a February 2015 report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC): “Iranian women who marry men from Iraq or Afghanistan are unable to pass on their Iranian nationality to their children, who thereby risk becoming stateless. Gender- discriminatory nationality laws often lead to the statelessness of women and children, or to situations where a woman, her children or husband are deprived