TEHRAN – The Iranian government has submitted a long-awaited bill for the protection of women against violence to the parliament.

The bill titled, Protection, Dignity, and Security of Women against Violence, had been under review since September 2019. It criminalizes any act or behavior that causes “physical or mental harm” to women “as a vulnerable gender”.

In line with principles and goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution and in order to protect the dignity and security of women against kinds of violent behaviors, the bill has been submitted to the parliament, IRNA quoted Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs, Hossein-Ali Amiri, as saying on Thursday.

It recommends a fund for safeguarding women’s rights with provisions for providing medical expenses of the victims of violence, and imparting skill development training to them, he explained.

Special support for women

Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar said in October 2020 that the government has taken major steps for the advancement of women and families in Iran. “Through an inter-sectoral process, we developed national indicators for gender equity, which laid the ground for the first result based Plan for Women and Family Advancement in 31 provinces and we recently launched the dashboard for monitoring indicators on gender equity and family prosperity.”

Meanwhile, the national budget bill for the next [Iranian calendar] year (March 2021-March 2022) has been prepared in a way to support and pay special attention to women, especially female heads of households, rural women, and artisans.

Ebtekar noted that the budget for women’s and family affairs has increased by 33 percent, reaching up to 320 billion rials (nearly $7.6 million), with remarks suggesting special support for women.

She went on to highlight that the family is the cornerstone of human development, through the National Family Dialogue scheme. “We have taken an initiative to empower civil society in dialogue skills to enable family and social cohesiveness. The International Center for Family Dialogue has been recently launched in Tehran.”

MG