Ask Your Father, Dear

Single women in Iran will need the permission of their guardians to be able to leave the country if a new bill secures enough votes in parliament.

At the moment, unmarried women and men above the age of 18 can leave the country if they have a passport but, according to the new bill, single women would need official consent from their guardian, usually their father.

Married women in Iran always need their husband’s permission to be able to hold a passport both under the current legislation that dates back to the pre–1979 Islamic revolution and under the proposed bill.

Iran has also introduced legislation that will authorize the creation of a system for assigning an actual monetary value to each individual female, to further reinforce the fact that women are just property for men to administer as they see fit.¹