Iranian parliament receives petition to scrap polygamy

Iranian parliament

A group of women’s rights activists delivered a petition with five thousand signatures to the Iranian parliament urging the legislative body to “bar polygamy.”

ILNA reports that the petition was delivered by 40 women who called on the parliament to halt al efforts in “promoting temporary marriages and polygamy.”

One of the activists announced that their efforts in the past week to meet with the parliament’s Legal and Judicial Commission had failed but the secretariat of the parliament had finally accepted the petition today.

According to this report, efforts to collect more signatures continue and other women’s groups will deliver them to the parliamentary office in the coming days.

The Legal and Judicial Commission of the parliament is set to review the controversial articles of the Family Protection Bill regarding temporary marriages, polygamy and lump-sum alimony (mehrieh) on Tuesday.

Women’s activists along with a group of former women parliamentarians pushed the parliament to review these articles last month.

Women’s rights websites also published a letter signed by over 330 “men defending equal rights.”

The signatories state that the articles of this bill are discriminatory and “while they degrade women, they are also an insult to men because the proposed law presumes that men are only motivated by their sexual desires.”

The statement goes on to add that they believe men must struggle alongside women for equal gender rights.

The Family Protection Bill was introduced into the parliament three years ago at which time protests from women’s groups forced the lawmakers to shelve it. However, in the past months, Iranian hardliners have managed to re-introduce it into the parliament and re-ignite the controversy.