October 18-2013
The Majlis has passed a law on the rights of children that includes a clause allowing a man to marry his own adopted daughter as young as 13 years old.
A judge must first rule that such a marriage is in the interests of the child, but many critics say judges have a tendency to defer to the family breadwinner in other instances where a judge must approve a father’s actions related to children.
The law was approved last Sunday and is now before the 12-man Council of Guardians, which must rule on whether bills enacted by the Majlis are in compliance with the Constitution and Islamic law before any bill can become law.
To the dismay of rights campaigners, girls in the Islamic Republic can be married off as young as 13 with the permission of their father. Boys can marry after the age of 15.
In Iran, a girl under the age of 13 can still be married off, but needs the permission of a judge. Currently, however, marrying stepchildren is outright forbidden under all circumstances.
As many as 42,000 children aged between 10 and 14 were married in 2010, according to the Tabnak news website. At least 75 children under the age of 10 were wed in Tehran.
Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer with the London-based group Justice for Iran told The Guardian she fears the Council of Guardians will endorse the bill.
“This bill is legalizing pedophilia,” she said. “It’s not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously, incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world. But this bill is legalizing pedophilia and is endangering our children and normalizing this crime in our culture.”
She said: “You should not be able to marry your adopted children—full stop. If a father marries his adopted daughter who is a minor and has sex, that’s rape.”
According to Sadr, officials in Iran have tried to play down the sexual aspect of such marriages, saying it was added to the bill to solve the issue of hejab [dress code] complications when a child is adopted.
An adopted daughter is expected to wear the hejab in front of her father, and a mother should wear it in front of her adopted son if he is old enough, Sadr said.
“With this bill, you can be a pedophile and get your bait on the pretext of adopting children,” Sadr said.
An earlier version of the bill had completely banned marriage with adopted children. It was vetoed by the Guardians. It is suspected the Majlis deputies added it this time to satisfy the six lay jurists and six clergymen who comprise the Council of Guardians. This is why Sadr fears it will likely pass the council this time.
The bill has prompted a backlash in Iran with the Reformist daily Sharq publishing an article warning about its consequences. “How can someone be looking after you [as a child] and at the same time be your husband?” the article asked.
Shiva Dolatabadi, head of Iran’s society for protecting children’s rights, warned that the bill implies the Majlis is legalizing incest. “You cannot open a way in which the role of a father or a mother can be mixed with that of a spouse,” she said, according to Sharq. “Children can’t be safe in such a family.”