A Study on Iranian Women’s Participation as Governors, Mayors and Members of City Councils

A Study on Iranian Women’s Participation as Governors, Mayors and Members of City Councils

Download English Version

Introduction

The Iranian regime ranks 137^th on the international level among 145 countries in terms of gender equality and political participation, and 141^st in terms of economic participation.

In December 2015, the state-run ISNA news agency cited Falahati, an official at the presidential directorate of Women and Family Affairs, who acknowledged that “compared to the countries in the region such as Azerbaijan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, Iran ranks lower, but from an economic and political perspective it ranks even lower than Chad.”

He added: In the UAE, women’s participation in the parliament is 18 per cent while their participation on the ministerial level is 17 per cent. In Saudi Arabia, women’s parliamentary participation is 20 per cent and in Pakistan is 21 per cent.

Whereas in the current Iranian parliament, there are only 17 women among 290 members of parliament, making up a mere 5.8% participation for women.

In this report, we will look at another aspect of women’s political participation, namely in the administration of cities and provinces.

Statistics simply reflect the truth

In the administratoin of Iranian cities and provinces, women hold only 13 out of 2653 positions as provincial governors, governors, district governors, and mayors. The statistics are as follows:

• The number of female provincial governors (ostandar): Zero from 31

(The state-run Raja News website – March 6, 2014)

• The number of female governors (farmandar): Was 4 out of 440 governors (about 0.9%). However, Marjan-naz Gholeichi, the Governor of Turkeman, lost her life during the Mana incident in Mecca and so the number of women governors decreased to 0.7%.

(The state-run Ham Ava website – April 19, 2015)

(The state-run Mashregh news website – October 6, 2015)

• The number of female mayors: 3 mayors

Two female mayors out of a total number of 1148 mayors run small towns of Louleman in the Province of Gilan and Kalat in the Province of Sistan-o Baluchistan. These small towns are not even registered in the list of cities.

(The state-run Mehr news agency – December 15, 2013)

• The number of female district governors (bakhshdar): 7 out of 1034

Two of these seven women barely passed the mullahs’ discrimination.

(The state-run Ham Ava website – April 19, 2015)

Last year, the provincial governor of Khuzistan, Abdol-Hassan Moghtadaii announced eight women as district governors but shortly afterwards “following complaints made by the clergy” they were suspended. Eventually only two of those women kept their posts.

(The state-run Tabnak website – December 17, 2015)

Women’s participation in the city councils

The Iranian regime’s officials launched an intense propaganda about a fake growth in women’s participation in the City Councils. The truth, however, is quite different when you study the media in the referenced media.

A report published by the parliament on the city councils’ elections accounts only for the main cities. The report claims that women constitue some 12% of the city councils and concludes a 1% drop in women’s participation.

A study on the outcome of the elections for the City Councils

Women’s participation compared in the fourth and fifth major City Councils

http://www.darsahn.org/1396/03/16/zanan-dar-kalanshahrha

Another state-run news outlet studied the decrease in women’s participation only in provincial centers estimating a 36.4% drop and setting the current number of women at 42.

(The state-run Iran newspaper –May 29, 2017)

Although these figures show only part of the catastrophic exclusion of women from the state’s management level but it is simultaneously concealing the bigger part of the truth.

The NCRI Women’s Committee compiled the latest elections outcome in more than 500 Iranian cities and towns from the statistics published in the state-run media in Iran and concluded that:

In a total of 500 big and small cities, only 64 women were elected as members of City Councils compared to 3724 male members. That amounts to a meager 1.7% participation for women in the City Councils.

There are no women in the City Councils of 285 of the 500 cities studied. This includes big cities like Orumiyeh, Marand, Damavand, Roudehen, Neishaboor, Qouchan, Shadgan, Khorramshahr, Zanjan, Semnan, Chabahar, Qom, Yasouj, Lahijan, Sari, Tonekabon, Qaemshahr and Malayer.

There is only one women in each of the City Councils of 21 cities including in major provinces like Tabriz, Ilam, Boushehr, Shahr-e Kurd, Bojnourd, Zahedan, Sanandaj, Kermanshah, Gorgan, Khorramabad and Arak.

Conclusion

Clearly, the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran has enchained the society with its misogyny. As such, it cannot maneuver on the issue of equality of women and their active participation in political leadership roles.  One can never hope for any real improvement in this situation under such misogynist regime.

Not only women do not have any significant role in the administration of cities and towns, but they are subject to sex-segregtion, exclusion from the job market and expulsion from the simplest jobs.

In July 2014, Tehran’s municipality issued a directive according to which women were eliminated from many municipality posts. The directive stressed that all senior and mid-level managers must employ male staff as chief of office, secretary, telephone operators, typists, etc. Some authorities officially branded the measure as sex-segregation, but at the same time, it was approved by the majority of political and religious officials. The majority of Friday prayer leaders called on all municipalities to follow the policies of Tehran’s municipality as an example.

Obviously, the Iranian regime’s fundamental policy is to exclude women from society altogether and confine them to the limits of their homes. As a result, the current small participation rate should be considered as being imposed on the regime.

In September, Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ supreme leader declared the state’s general policies on “family” as part of the country’s Constitution. In articles 12 and 16, the role of women has been described as the following:

12. Supporting women’s honorable role of motherhood and housekeeping
13. Creating the necessary mechanisms to comprehensively improve families’ health, particularly women’s healthy reproduction and increased fertility rate.

Noting Khamenei’s decree on women’s increased fertility rate and population expansion in June 2016, Kobra Khaz-Ali, head of Women’s Social and Cultural Council, announced: “Since girls mature at age 9, the educational curriculum must be condensed so that youngsters could obtain their high school diploma at 15 and their bachelor’s degree at the age of 18.” (The state-run ANA news agency – June 19, 2016)

Of course, the clerical regime’s laws have already created numerous obstacles for women in employment, and other political and social activities. The Islamic Republic’s Constitution has made it impossible for women to become a president or a judge.

Article 1105 of the Civil Code indicates that inherently, man is head of the family and can even prevent his wife from leaving home.

Article 1117 of the Civil Code gives men the right to prevent employment of their wives.

Furthermore, the clerical regime’s Labor Law in its preamble considers a woman’s role in the family as her main occupation. In the first item, it insists on the value of homemaking for women.

Appendix:

Table of Women’s Participation in Iran’s City Councils (compiled from the official websites of various municipalities of Iranian cities by the NCRI Women’s Committee)