Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A Woman's Worth

Another women's rights advocate has been arrested in Iran. Maryam Hosseinkhah, a journalist who has been active in the campaign to change discriminatory laws against women, was jailed when she was unable to come up with bail. Here's the web site, Change For Equality, that got her in trouble with the authorities. Here's a video that they put together to highlight their cause. (I'll try to get it embedded here on the site to make it easier to share.) And here's a list of the laws they're trying to change, which include:

• rewriting marriage and divorce laws to include women's right to self-determination;
• raising the age of legal responsibility for girls from 9 years old (the age for boys is 14);
• granting women the same legal "worth" as men in both liability and inheritance law (they're currently valued at half a man's worth).

The heart of the mobilization is an effort to gather One Million Signatures in support of their demands, a door to door campaign that also allows them to educate people around the issues. You can sign the online version of the petition here.

I don't want to get too sanctimonious, and I don't know what kind of impact we can have on their struggle. But I did want to call attention to these women. They're pretty damn courageous. Take a look at the video and you'll see what I mean.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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