By Sara Atta

Women's Rights in the West; Claim or Reality?

August 23, 2023 - 15:30
Women from the Leader's point of view - Part 29

TEHRAN – While rape and widespread violence against women in Western societies is carried out on a large scale, Western governments as claimants of defending women's rights present their country as a model of an ideal society.

Sexual trade and slavery, the breaking of all moral and customary boundaries, and the legalization of issues such as homosexuality, which is forbidden in all divine religions, and other scandals, are the results of the West’s viewpoint and culture with respect to women.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in one of his speeches pointed to the Western view of women, saying, “The Western view of women is an insult to women: they call it "freedom", but it is not, in fact, representative freedom. Over the past two, or three decades, Westerners have chosen charming names for their crimes against humanity. Whenever they've committed murder; whenever they've plundered a country; whenever they've enslaved people; whenever they've confiscated other nations' sources of wealth; whenever they've imposed wars on nations or whenever they've committed other crimes, they chose deceptive and beautiful names for their actions: liberation, human rights, democracy and other such things. Describing the Western attitude towards women as "freedom" is a deception: it has nothing to do with freedom.” (May 11, 2013)

It seems that human rights as an idealistic approach have become a political tool for some countries and the West has made the most political use of it. All the documents that exist in this regard show that the West is the biggest violator of human rights.

Among all examples of human rights violations in the West, the violation of women's rights and violence against them in all social, economic, racial, and geographical classes is prominent in the West.

“The cornerstone of Western culture is that women should be socially presented as a product, an object that men can benefit from; for instance, promoting immodest clothing is a step in this direction. Over the past 100 years, or more, violence against women in the West has been on the rise: there has been no decrease in violence in this regard. Sexual freedom and unprincipled sexual behaviors in the West have not curbed sexual desires, which are natural and instinctive. In the past, they used to promote the idea that men and women should be allowed to have free relationships with one another to diminish their sexual desires; later on, clearly, quite the opposite happened. The more that they allowed men and women to have free sexual relationships with one another, the more the resulting situation of sexual desires increased. Today, Westerners feel no shame in promoting homosexuality as a moral value: this makes any dignified human embarrassed, but Westerners have no shame. The Western view of women is perverted, flawed, misleading, and simply wrong,” Ayatollah Khamenei said on the same day.

If we look at the statistics of the violation of women's rights in the West, we will find that while Western countries claim to protect women and their media outlets pretend that they are the saviors of women in the world, a study of the status of women in Europe and the US reveals the falsity of their claims.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution in this regard noted, “The ultimate disgrace of the West is that despite the problems in their society such as sexual slavery and the female sex trade, they claim to be the flag bearers of women’s rights. (January 4, 2023)

According to the statistics of George Mason University, it is estimated that 1 in 3 American women has been sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

The statistics of rape and destruction of women's dignity in Europe, which claims women's rights, are also significant, just like in the US.

The Government itself estimates that, in England and Wales alone, 85,000 women per year – equivalent to 233 per day – are raped and well over 400,000 are sexually assaulted.

One in five women in England and Wales has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.

Ayatollah Khamenei during a meeting with hundreds of prominent Iranian women in the Imam Khomeini Hussainiyah on January 4, 2023, said that the West’s claims to be the defenders of women’s rights are disgraceful given what the West’s official statistics and facts say about the status of women there.

According to the YWCA Canada, 460,000 sexual assaults happened in Canada every year. 33 out of every 1,000 sexual assault cases are reported to the police, and 29 are recorded as a crime.

According to the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Personal Safety Survey (PSS), almost 2 million Australian adults had experienced at least 1 sexual assault since the age of 15. Between 2010 and 2018, rates of sexual assault victimization recorded by police for Australians aged 15 and over rose by more than 30% (from 66.8 to 90.2 per 100,000) (based on ABS 2019).

“In the present time, the largest numbers of violent rape are being committed throughout the West–in the US and in Europe. Is this justice? Their statistical calculations [for violent sex crimes] are much larger than in other countries. That is the while, some women, apparently–according to their own statements–enjoy freedom there [in the West]! According to statistics, most instances of domestic violence–violence at home--by men against women are committed in Western countries. Moreover, these statistics reveal that many women will not dare file a complaint against their abuser. These statistics are related to only those who file a complaint; so, these statistics do not represent all victims. It is those countries [Western countries] that have problems–problems related to life, to culture, and to the management of that society. So, where is the justice? There is no justice! They speak about gender justice simply to pursue their own goals [elsewhere],” the leader said. (March 8, 2018)