Worse
Than Hell
Iranian
women live in misery under mullahs' rule
Monthly Bulletin
of the Women's Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran
NOVEMBER 2000
Twenty years
after the mullahs seized power in Iran and established a
merciless reign of terror under the name of God, the country has
been plagued with a variety of social ills. Poverty,
destitution, theft, prostitution, runaway girls, street children
and addiction have become so prevalent, that the clerical regime
can no longer conceal them.
Officials admit
that the average age of prostitution has dropped from 27 to 20.
Addiction has spread to high schools as the government's harsh
anti-drug policy which has resulted in thousands of executions,
has failed to alleviate the problem.
This is nothing
short of a disaster for a country, like Iran, with its rich
cultural heritage and ancient traditions, that made it a
standard-bearer of moral and ethical principles in the region.
Families enjoyed
solid foundations and parents diligently looked after the
welfare of their children until they got a job or formed
families of their own. Few, if any, people were seen begging in
streets. Drug addiction was limited and prostitution was never
sanctioned by the people.
Today, citizens
who have left Iran speak of shocking stories that are no longer
isolated cases, but rather are becoming more and more prevalent.
Without doubt, the mullahs' regime cannot and does not want to
stop this trend; it is itself the source of these calamities. By
funding, spreading and promoting addiction and prostitution in
society, it aims to drain the potential of young people and
prevent them from actively opposing the regime.
The following is
an excerpt from a report by the Women's Committee of the
National Council of Resistance, compiled on the basis of
eyewitness reports by people who left the country recently to
join the Resistance movement.
A social worker:
"During the inspection of one elementary school in uptown
Tehran, it was reported to me that a few students were not doing
well and usually fell asleep in the classes. When I discussed
with their mother about the cause of this problem, she gave me a
chilling answer. 'We cannot pay for our expenses. Life is very
expensive. I have three daughters, all above 9 years of age, so
I rent them to men for 50,000 rials ($4.25) a night. If you have
any clients, please send them to me,' she said bluntly."
Female college
students are forced into prostitution in order to earn their
tuition. Most of them have respectable families who cannot
afford to pay their daughters' tuition. So the girls engage in
prostitution to earn enough money for their tuition. One such
girl says, "I am only 21. It is not easy for me to do this.
If my father found out, he would die from agony. I wish I could
do something else to earn a living, but there are no jobs for
women."
In Boroujerd
University (western Iran) and Azad University in north Tehran,
officials take advantage of the students' difficult economic
conditions and lure them into prostitution, addiction and drug
trafficking, as a way of distracting the young and energetic
girls from getting involved in political activism.
A young woman
said: "A friend of mine had difficulty paying for her
tuition. She acted through the university's department of
education to find a solution. Officials invited her to corrupt
parties. She could not protest because the officials could use
this against her and send her before the courts for illicit
relationships."
Responding to
the question why she had become a call girl, another one of
these girls said: "I do not have any money even for food.
My boyfriend pays for my food only once or twice. The next time,
he wants something from me. There are no jobs. My parents are so
poor that they cannot earn their own living, let alone pay for
my college expenses... I either have to starve to death or
somehow survive to see what would happen next."
This situation
is said to be common to all universities and not an isolated
case.
A shocking
report from one girls' high school in a southern district of
Tehran, indicated that out of every 100 students, 25 are
dismissed from school for unwanted pregnancy. One gynecologist
says, "I have been in this profession for years. Unwanted
pregnancy in teenagers used to happen once in ten years. Such
high rate of young girls having unwanted pregnancies, however,
is truly incredible and unfortunately involves many
families."
Other reports
explain why: "A girl student was raped at school in the
gendarmarie township. Her family filed a complaint. In a
follow-up it was discovered that 80% of the students in that
school had been sexually abused. Further investigations revealed
that the staff and faculty had raped the girls."
A young high
school teacher adds: "Girls run away from school because of
many restrictions imposed on them. Many of them escape and no
one bothers to notice their absence. This group of students are
rapidly driven into prostitution, and soon, they cannot go back
to school or to their families. They have to join the multitudes
of runaway girls who either commit suicide or are gang raped,
mutilated and their bodies dumped by the side of the road."
When the mullahs
came to power, one of the first things they did was to burn down
the brothels in Tehran. Then they made it compulsory for women
to cover their hair. Government-backed hoodlums roamed the
streets and beat up and arrested women who did not observe the
compulsory dress code. They splashed acid on the face of any
woman who wore make-up. They beat up and arrested young couples
who could not prove that they were married. Women and men were
stoned to death for illicit relationships.
Twenty
years later, the clerical regime's draconian laws and harsh
measures have backfired and the mullahs have failed to address
the underlying causes of these problems, namely a terrible
economic situation with 80% of Iranian families living below the
poverty line. The multitude of problems plaguing the country are
the direct result of the mullahs' despotic and misogynous rule,
from which women have suffered the most.