Girls forced to marry & killed in Iran
By Miriam Karmali, Freedom United
| Mona Heydari was just 17 years old when she was murdered by her husband. Coerced into marriage as a child, Mona suffered domestic abuse before her life was brutally taken last year. Devastatingly, Mona Heydari’s death is not an isolated incident. Demanding an end to forced child marriage everywhere NOW! |
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Mona’s murder has sparked anger across Iran and globally, renewing calls for a review of minimum marriage age laws in the country to better protect girls and women from being forced into marriages against their will.
The current legal age of marriage for girls in Iran is 13 though girls even younger than this can marry with parental consent. In practice this dangerous exception allows for parental and familial coercion to force girls into marriage. Like Mona, girls’ lives are taken from them.
Mona was only 12 years old when she was married and had her first child two years later. She reportedly experienced domestic violence during her marriage and sought refuge in Turkey before returning to Iran where her family assured her that she would be safe.
The younger a child is, the less freedom they have to give their consent to marriage and the more vulnerable they are to modern slavery. Girls who are victims of forced child marriage are often subjected to abuse, sexual exploitation, and control, with little or no power over their own movements.
Call on governments to protect girls like Mona.
Her death has been branded a so-called “honor-killing”. Honor-based abuse (HBA) is the term given to abusive practices to “punish” perceived transgressions against certain expectations and norms,often perpetrated by the familial unit with HBA starting at home.
Coercive control such as family members threatening to kill themselves or to ostracize individuals if they do not obey certain demands is a form of HBA. Violence and physical abuse also constitute HBA and can escalate into murder.
Today, the Iranian government continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, many led by young Iranian women against the violent discrimination and repression of women at the hands of the so-called “morality police”.
Sign the petition building pressure on world governments to act against forced marriage TODAY!
The more of us that add our voices demanding an end to forced child marriage, the harder we’ll be to ignore. Together we can help push governments and civil society to make ending this abhorrent practice a priority.
In solidarity,
Miriam and the team supporting the Freedom United community
 Miriam KarmaliAdvocacy, Freedom United |
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