Progress Amid Resistance

IRAN 141F To improve female labor-force participation rates, the governmentshould establish an affirmative action or quota system within the publicsector and provide financial incentives (such as reduced tax) to en -courage the employment of women in private institutions.F The government should establish a mechanism to allow women tofile gender-based discrimination complaints against public or privateemployers.F To support socially vulnerable women, the government should increasebudget allocations and encourage the creation of support networks suchas microcredit lenders, women’s cooperatives, and vocational trainingand internships for women in both rural and urban areas.F Special aid programs should be provided to widows, divorcees, singlemothers who are their households’ sole breadwinners, caregivers infamilies headed by women, and caregivers to the elderly.F Women’s NGOs should create exploratory need-assessment andresearch projects on practices and laws concerning gender-related discriminationin employment and at universities. Particular attentionmust be paid to sexual harassment and sexual abuse in universities andworkplaces, which remains a taboo subject with no legal recourse forthe victims.POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIC VOICEEven with sex segregation, discriminatory laws, and state policies stressingwomen’s domestic duties, women in Iran play a considerable andvery visible role in the public sphere. Using any available spaces andlegal rights, they have demonstrated their activism in both formal andinformal political and civil society organizations. A growing women’srights movement, especially in the past 10 years, has been challengingdiscriminatory laws and policies in various areas of life, including thosethat prevent women from taking part in high-level decision-making andpolitical power. Women’s activities have been constrained by some culturaltraditions and state repression, especially under the presidency ofAhmadinejad.Women in Iran have the right to vote and run for public office but areex cluded from holding leadership roles in the main organs of power, suchas the office of the supreme leader, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian