Barred from traveling by their husbands, Iranian women suffer under unjust laws

Mar 8, 2021

The travel ban and arrest of one woman made headlines around the world last month after a new video surfaced of Princess Latifa in captivity. She was banned from traveling and placed under house arrest by her own father, Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in 2018. During the same month, the Iranian national women’s ski team left Tehran for Italy to participate in the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships without its head coach, Samira Zargari, because Zargari’s husband barred her from leaving the country.

What the husband did is completely legal in Iran, and the team’s efforts to challenge his decision were fruitless. Officials involved also sought his permission but to no avail. The common denominator between the two cases and many more that do not necessarily make headlines is the culture of patriarchy that exists in the region. The law, which is put in place by men, only encourages and enforces discrimination against women.

Using the law to ban women from leaving the country is one of the worst things that can happen in modern Iran. At a time when women are gaining a prominent presence in the public arena and have even assumed the post of vice president, husbands having this authority no longer has any logical and legal justification. Imagine if the husband of Masoumeh Ebtekar, the current vice president of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, were to ban his wife from traveling overseas to represent Iran in international conferences. Legally he is permitted to do that. The fact that he has not used this legal privilege is beside the point. The point is that this is a legal option for men in the first place, which is absurd. Thus, all Iranian women are at risk of being negatively affected both personally and professionally. The men are legally permitted to overstep boundaries and control individuals within the family, particularly the wives who are themselves mature adults — making for toxic family dynamics.

Zargari is not the first woman to fall victim to this unjust law. Five years ago, captain of the women’s national futsal team Niloufar Ardalan was banned from participating in the Asian Cup because her husband used the travel law at that critical time to forbid her from leaving the country.

Zahra Nemati, another prominent female sports figure in Iran, also fell victim to this discriminatory law. She is the archery champion from the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in 2017, she won the title for best paralympic archer. Her husband used this legal tool to gain an advantage in a dispute between them. While Nemati lamented the media coverage of the incident, saying she did not want to address her private and personal issues in the media, her husband openly and recklessly stated, “I forbade her to leave so that she could not participate in any international tournaments.” This issue is not limited to a few female athletes who, due to their prominence, make headlines. Many Iranian wives experience this injustice and will continue to do so as long as these discriminatory laws are in place. There are currently 23 restrictions in Iranian law on married women, as listed in the World Bank’s database, “Women, Business, and the Law.”