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HRW urged Iran to lift restrictions on women’s education

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Human Rights Watch urged Iran on Saturday to lift restrictions on women attending university and enrolling in certain academic fields.

Thirty-six universities across Iran have banned women from 77 different majors, including accounting, counseling, and engineering, for the school year that begins on Saturday, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported in August.

There was no official reason given for the move, but Iranian officials have expressed alarm in recent months about the country’s declining birth and marriage rates, seen as partially caused by women’s rising educational attainment in the last two decades.

In a statement released on Saturday, Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian government to immediately reverse the more restrictive policies, and said they were a violation of the international right to education for everyone without discrimination.

Thirty-six universities across Iran have banned women from 77 different majors, including accounting, computer science , English literature , counseling and engineering

“As university students across Iran prepare to start the new academic year, they face serious setbacks, and women students in particular will no longer be able to pursue the education and careers of their choice,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.

Women in Iran make up a majority of college students. Sixty percent of those who passed this year’s national college entrance exam were women, said Hossein Tavakoli, an official at Iran’s National Education Assessment Organization (NEAO), according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi argued in a letter to the United Nations in August that the closure of certain academic fields to women was part of a push by the Iranian government to stifle “women’s presence in the public arena”.

Human Rights Watch said some of the banned majors include high-paying fields where women have had a greater presence in recent years, like engineering and applied science, while other restrictions did not seem to follow a pattern and were arbitrary.

In a statement released in late August, the NEAO criticised news coverage of the restrictions, saying they were taken out of context.

“The overwhelming majority of universities and centres of higher education accept women and men in all fields,” the NEAO statement said.

Reuters

 

Top picture : Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi . She argued in a letter to the United Nations in August that the closure of certain academic fields to women was part of a push by the Iranian government to stifle “women’s presence in the public arena”.

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19 responses to “HRW urged Iran to lift restrictions on women’s education”

  1. saoudiAhbal Avatar
    saoudiAhbal

    women in iran have other issues than education; this is not a priority; they got more primordial issues that need to be tackled namely to be considered human beings first

  2. saoudiAhbal Avatar
    saoudiAhbal

    women in iran have other issues than education; this is not a priority; they got more primordial issues that need to be tackled namely to be considered human beings first

  3. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    It has been shown in Africa that giving women an education up to the grade 8 level reduced both birth-rate and disease. Iran needs to ban education at a lot lower level to achieve the baby-factory rates it wants … something like the Taliban methods could do it … although acid in the face or poisoning for going to school is perhaps not going to achieve the marriage rate they wish for. Maybe the jail-rot time and broken bones by iron bars in 2009 was a reason for less babies. Everything the Supreme Being does seems to work against what he wants. Pity.
    If women are willing to sit in a classroom that looks as cold and hard as that one above to achieve what they want, Mr. Supreme will need to make more ‘adjustments’ for sure.

  4. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    It has been shown in Africa that giving women an education up to the grade 8 level reduced both birth-rate and disease. Iran needs to ban education at a lot lower level to achieve the baby-factory rates it wants … something like the Taliban methods could do it … although acid in the face or poisoning for going to school is perhaps not going to achieve the marriage rate they wish for. Maybe the jail-rot time and broken bones by iron bars in 2009 was a reason for less babies. Everything the Supreme Being does seems to work against what he wants. Pity.
    If women are willing to sit in a classroom that looks as cold and hard as that one above to achieve what they want, Mr. Supreme will need to make more ‘adjustments’ for sure.

    1. nayyashAl3arab Avatar
      nayyashAl3arab

      you do not need much education to be trailed behind a man, do you?

  5. swami Avatar
    swami

    human rights watch is nothing but a shabby , western manufactured organization  and shirin ebadi is mullahs’ whore and mouth-piece who is being thrown in the  mix when she is called upon to perform her duty . These moves are all are  staged theatrics

    1. nayyashAl3arab Avatar
      nayyashAl3arab

      might is right

  6. swami Avatar
    swami

    human rights watch is nothing but a shabby , western manufactured organization  and shirin ebadi is mullahs’ whore and mouth-piece who is being thrown in the  mix when she is called upon to perform her duty . These moves are all are  staged theatrics

    1. nayyashAl3arab Avatar
      nayyashAl3arab

      might is right

  7. Michael Snowden Avatar
    Michael Snowden

    Muslim women do not need education, they should know their place. Muslim men need only basic education,otherwise they will start asking questions about things they should keep their noses out of.
    The middle-east has enough education for the tasks that will be assigned to them. The Quran has all the education
    muslims need.

    1. $31060015 Avatar
      $31060015

      What was that Michael, Your an Idiot. Thanks for communicating that, however after reading some of your other blogs I think most already knew this.

    2. $31060015 Avatar
      $31060015

      What was that Michael, Your an Idiot. Thanks for communicating that, however after reading some of your other blogs I think most already knew this.

  8. Michael Snowden Avatar
    Michael Snowden

    Muslim women do not need education, they should know their place. Muslim men need only basic education,otherwise they will start asking questions about things they should keep their noses out of.
    The middle-east has enough education for the tasks that will be assigned to them. The Quran has all the education
    muslims need.

    1. AntiFSA Avatar
      AntiFSA

      What was that Michael, Your an Idiot. Thanks for communicating that, however after reading some of your other blogs I think most already knew this.

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