Deputy Leader of the Women’s Fraction: We are Pursuing Women’s Issues

The Women’s Fraction will be following up on the child marriage draft legislation and will submit it to the Parliament in the current year. The draft legislation on the facilitation of women to leave the country was one of the mentioned proposals on women the preliminary studies of which are underway in the relevant Commission. The draft legislation on the granting of citizenship to children who have Iranian mothers and foreign fathers has also been followed up which is currently in the hands of the Parliament’s National Security Commission.

The review of the draft legislation on the protection of children and juveniles rights has been fully completed and will soon be taken to the open session of the Parliament. Another draft legislation is the violence against women draft which women members of parliament have been pursuing its approval since their presence in Parliament, and the draft is currently under final review by the government’s Judicial Commission. Also another two draft legislations on the amendment of women’s leave law have been submitted. This proposal has been implemented in most governmental and administrative centres but still its implementation has been faced with difficulties in some offices, and the proposal for the amendment of this law has been submitted to the Parliament with an urgency so that it finds itself into the open session of the Parliament in 2018.

A lot of benefits have been considered for women heads of household for 2018. For example 200 billion Rials was approved by support organizations for the employment of women heads of household, and for the first time this budget was allocated to the Consolidation Commission through the efforts of the members of the Women’s Fraction and women members of Parliament, and for the first time five percent of all the budgets of the provincial governments got allocated for women’s affairs in provincial towns. This budget will held women’s employment debate and support for women entrepreneurs and women heads of household. The members of the Women’s Fraction have asked for the Women’s Affair Deputy to pursue the realisation of this budget so that the allocation of budgets does not just remain on paper.

Proposals that have not been announced
The Women’s Fraction’s deputy leader said that proposals have been suggested in the Women’s Fraction which for some reason have not found their way to the Parliament for review, one of them being the removal obstacles from the livelihood of women. Due to some obstacles in the way of this proposal until the removal of all of them, and explanation of the raised issues the Women’s Fraction shall continue to review. These types of proposals also require the study and Q&A of relevant experts.

Efforts to resolve the proposals
In 2017 women members of Parliament reviewed a lot of women’s issues and had various meetings with experts and various authorities. For example women members of Parliament made more than seven visits to Qom on the subject of child marriages and spoke to various religious leaders and pursued the matter of women attending sports venues and many more proposals in the Women’s Fraction.

According to the words of the President and the Sports Minister the issue of women’s attendance in sports arenas will be resolved and women will be able to attend national volleyball and basketball games like back in 2017. In the two trips that the Women’s Fraction and the Parliament’s Cultural Commission made to Qom, the matter of women’s presence in sports venues, women leaving the country and child marriages were discussed with religious scholars and leaders, and the Women’s Fraction continues to seek the views and consultations of religious scholars in the presentation of these proposals. On the subject of child marriages, seven meetings were held with the Parliament’s Researches Centre and jurists, top Qom religious leaders, women’s health centres, Imam Ali Society and relevant NGOs. The aim in holding of these meetings was to present expertise and mature proposals to the session so that there would be less obstacles in the way of collecting votes for them, and many logical and justifiable reasons were given in the defence of each of these proposals. Also last year, numerous meetings were held with Ministers and the matter of the 30 percent presence of women in managerial posts was raised with them. This proposal which was issued by the President to the Ministers, obliges them to utilise women and youths. We also requested the President to hold further meetings with women members of Parliament so that the 30 percent share of the capabilities of experienced women in managerial posts to be applied soon, and for the subject not just remain a slogan.

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