The Iranian government has passed a bill on 3 January that criminalizes violence against women, including action or behaviour that causes “physical or mental harm” to women. However, the bill falls short of international standards.

The complete draft of the bill has not yet been made public, but a summary posted on the government’s website states that “any act that causes physical or emotional or reputational harm” to a woman or results in curbing her freedom and social rights is considered a crime.

Iranian women’s rights activists have campaigned for such a law for 16 years and President Hassan Rouhani’s administration has been working on the draft law since the 2013 election.

The draft “Protection, Dignity and Security of Women against Violence” bill has been under review since September 2019, after the judiciary announced that it had completed its review and submitted the bill back to the cabinet.

The bill will now have to be adopted by parliament to become law and it will prove a challenge as there is a conservative majority in Parliament.

The decision to move ahead with the bill — which, if approved, will be the first law of its kind in Iran’s penal code — is said to have been also favoured by the #MeToo movement which launched campaigns since last August.

A number of so-called honour killings over the past six months are also said to be behind the decision to put the draft bill through.

The draft bill addresses sexual harassment and coercing women into sexual acts short of intercourse as crimes. Sending a woman an unsolicited sexual message, text or photograph, demanding sexual relations or forcing sexual acts could bring penalties of six months to two years in prison and up to 99 lashes, as well as monetary fines.

The judiciary has been required to create and sponsor centers that provide support for victims of violence and women vulnerable to violence, according to the bill summary published on the Iranian government webpage. In addition, security forces are also obliged to create a special female police unit to protect women.

Masoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s vice president for women’s and family affairs, said in a Tweet that the draft was the result of hundreds of hours of deliberation by legal and government experts and was “dedicated to the deserving and patient women of Iran.”

According to Human Rights Watch “the draft law has a number of positive provisions, including to form an inter-ministerial national committee to draft strategies and coordinate government responses to violence against women. It also obligates ministries and government agencies to undertake measures to help prevent violence and assist women, including by forming special police units for these cases. It also would create restraining orders and a fund to support women.”
However, the bill falls short of international standards, said the human rights association adding that “while the draft law defines violence against women broadly and criminalizes various forms of violence, it does not criminalize some forms of gender-based violence, such as marital rape and child marriage. Nor does it amend the criminal code’s limited and problematic definition of rape, which explicitly excludes marital rape.”

HRW underlined that “the mandatory punishment for rape is the death penalty, which can deter women from reporting rape. The draft law also does not define domestic violence. Some of the crimes it sets out violate the right to privacy and other protected freedoms, such as proposing an “illicit relationship” and encouraging or persuading a woman to commit acts contrary to ‘chastity’.”