Answer = pretty bad. 


IWF’s international policy team (Yasmine Rassam and Lida Noory) examine the struggle for basic human rights in Iran over at Human Events Online this morning:


“It comes as little surprise that women who are treated as second-class citizens in Iran still struggle for basic human rights protections under Iranian law. Since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, Islamic clerics have imposed strict interpretations of shari’a law and segregated women in most aspects of public life. 
 
“There has been a series of cases where women have been condemned to death by hanging or stoning. For instance, Ashraf Kolhari, who is a mother of four, was sentenced to death by stoning for having sex outside of marriage. Kolhari’s sentence was protested by human rights and women’s rights organizations across the world. Although her sentence has been suspended, stoning is still legal in Iran. Also, Nazanin Fatehi was sentenced to death by hanging for killing a man in self-defense who attempted to rape her and her niece. 
 
“In Iran, boys are considered legally responsible for their crimes after the age of 15, for women the age of criminal responsibility is 9. Leyla Mafi, one of many young victims of this draconian legal code, was whipped 100 times for prostitution at the age of 10. Unfortunately, stories like Ashraf’s, Nazanin’s, and Leyla’s are all too common in the Islamic Republic. 
 
“Shari’a law also places many restrictions on women’s legal and civil rights. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, the government repealed the 1967 Family Protection Law, which provided women with rights in the home and workplace, and replaced it with a legal system based on shari’a law that severely restricted women’s rights in inheritance, divorce and custody rights. Gender segregation is enforced in public places and prohibits women from mixing openly with unmarried and/or unrelated men. They must ride in a reserved section on public buses and enter public buildings from separate entrances. If a woman appears in public without a chador (the appropriate head-to-toe Islamic covering in Iran) she can be sentenced to lashings or a fine.”


Read the whole article here.