Iran has already turned into a country of horror. Citizen of that country, most of who are already fed-up with the fanatics ruling the country, are gradually raising their voice for democracy and end of reign of terror established by Ayatollah Khomeini through his so-called Islamic revolution in 1979.
Murder of civilians under the garb of Sharia law is a regular phenomenon in that country. Press and freedom of expression is seriously suffocated. There are series of reports of gross human rights violations. Girls and women are raped inside prison by the prison guards, before execution.
Are they Islamic clerics or pimps?
Iranian clerics or Mullahs, who are in the administration, have long exposed their nasty faces as mere pimps, who are selling their girls and women to a number of countries as well tourists in that country. Iranian girls and women are continuing to be sold as ‘Jihadist Tools’ to various nations with millions of dollars. While Iranian rulers pretend to treat prostitution or sex trade as taboo since it became Islamic republic in 1979, it is evidently proved that poor governance of it is not only pushing thousands of Iranians into prostitution, but in many cases, those Mullahs are the ultimate beneficiaries of growing sex trade in that country.
In the 1970s, Bostonians looking for a proverbial good time went to the “Combat Zone” and New Yorkers flocked to 42nd Street; in contemporary Iran, the ‘holy city’ of Qom is known [unofficially] as a place of ‘both pilgrimage and pleasure’. There, prostitutes wearing veils and even chadors mill about temples or sit together in public courtyards where men can inspect them. Sometimes a male go-between [most of them are clerics] offer “introductions,” at which point the prostitutes pull aside their headgear so the potential client can get a glimpse. For an outsider, it’s difficult to pick a street girl out of a crowd. Qom may have become a prostitution hot spot due to the abundance of shrines. Young female runaways with no shelter come to the city knowing they can take refuge at ‘holy sites’ by sleeping in rooms intended for pilgrims. They have no way of making a living. So after a while they get involved in the sex trade. The city’s young theological students and transient tourists form the main clientele.
Of course, Qom isn’t the only place in Iran where prostitutes walk on the streets. Back in 2002, the Iranian newspaper Entekhab estimated that there were nearly 85,000 prostitutes in Tehran alone. In that city, and especially in nearby suburbs, there are neighborhoods where heavily made-up prostitutes in traditional garb stand idly at traffic circles. Prospective customers drive by slowly to check out, then make a deal. The visual difference between an ordinary citizen wearing makeup who happens to be standing alone and a prostitute is, again, quite subtle. Apparently, mistakes are not uncommon.
Officially, the penalties for prostitution are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there’s a loophole in the Islamic law called Sighe and Mut’ah, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a girl or woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date. There’s no legally required minimum duration [a day, a week, anything goes] and no need for official witnesses—unless the woman is a virgin, in which case she needs the consent of her legal guardian. An Iranian who’s wary of arrest can simply escort a prostitute to a registry, obtain a temporary contract from a Muslim cleric, and then legally satisfy his sexual needs. And here is the point, where clerics get the opportunity of working as the pimp for that girl or woman. In most cases, Iranian mullahs maintain network with national and international prostitution ring, where they supply these women, who possess a temporary marriage certificate [issued by the cleric], giving them the chance of entering the profession with a legal license of Islamic mask.
Prostitutes wear their veils loosely over their heads in a style that passes for risqué in this strictly regulated society in Iran. The sex workers are often young, including many teenagers who have run away from abusive homes. Based on an official figure of 2012, there were some 300,000 females who work as prostitutes in Iran. And according to newspapers, the number is steadily rising. Acute poverty and unemployment are compelling many of the Iranian females in choosing prostitution as profession. Some affluent Iranians have established under-cover offices in United Arab Emirates and other Arab nations as well as countries like Thailand, Maldives, Indonesia, Philippines etc, wherefrom they are trading in Iranian girls and women to the prospective individual clients or brothel operators. There are facilities in those covert pimp houses of conducting Mut’ah marriage via Skype, WhatsApp etc, where Mullahs sitting in Iran conduct such ‘marriages’ against the payment of fees.
In recent times, several prominent conservative clerics have proposed that prostitutes be placed in government-run shelters for destitute females to be called “Chastity Houses,” where male customers could briefly marry and enjoy them under Islamic law. Proponents of the idea argue that it would “eradicate social corruption” by legitimizing sexual relations between the men and women. Under the plan, the couples would register for a temporary marriage under Iran’s Shiite religious law code. The code allows a man to marry a girl or woman for a mutually agreed time as short as a few hours by reciting a verse from the Koran. Supporting the plan, Ayatollah Mohammed Mousavi Bojnurdi said: “We face a real challenge with all these females on the street. Our society is in an emergency situation.”
Hojatolislam Mohammed Taghi Fazel-Meibodi, a member of Qom Seminary, told RFE/RL’s Persian Service that the proposal is religiously legal.
He said, “Our young people are troubled. There is poverty, unemployment, and more and more girls are escaping from their homes. In a society where there are sharp differences between rich and poor, rich men will use these poor females for a quick thrill and to satisfy their impulses and lust.”
Supporting the temporary marriage system, Iranian clerics say, such marriage helps easing social discontent among young men who are forced by the struggling economy to late marriages. The socialist-style economy is unable to provide new jobs to absorb the large numbers of young men and is plagued by double-digit inflation and unemployment. As a result, many young men are unable to afford to start families, and the average marrying age has jumped from the early 20s, common three decades ago, to about 35 today.
Temporary marriage’s or Mut’ah phenomenon became common in Iran after Mullah’s regime had legalized this kind of marriage and made it a legal marriage throughout Iran through establishing offices to arranging that marriage for persons who seek it. Iranian regime appointed clerics in these offices who intervene to conducting this marriage for persons who seek a sex under the garb of Mut’ah marriage. If we contemplated well in concept of the temporary marriage or Mut’ah, Mullah’s created and gave legal religious feature, so we would find that this marriage is a kind of masked prostitution.
On other hand, women, who repeatedly enter into this type of covered prostitution called Mut’ah for many times, become unapproved by their societies for permanent marriage. Finally they become slaves in their old ages. Mullahs have turned Iranian girls and women into sex slave, who are sold and bought as commodities similar to those women in the dark ages. Such practices are nothing new in Islam. Ancient Arabic predecessors of Iran did the same thing when they invaded Persia before 1400 years ago and enslaved its females and transferred them to Arabic regions to be sold in markets as slaves. Mullahs made Mut’ah as an approach for clerics, officials and members of revolutionary guards in getting the cheap and covert sex workers.
These are the ‘rights’ radical Islam has granted to Iranian females. It turned the girls and women, who used to enjoy civil rights under Shah’s time into female slave.
Iran has turned into a cheap market for Arabs coming for cheap and legitimized prostitution under the cover of temporary marriage.
In today’s Iran, educated women seeking affluence are also entering prostitution. Such things happened in former Soviet Union following the collapse of communism in 1990. Russians went hungry during the early 1990s as the Soviet economy dissolved and the currency collapsed. Today’s Iranians suffer from scarcities and tremendous inflation.
Prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, 2009 the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. “More than 90 percent of Tehran’s prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30 percent of them are registered at a university or studying,” reports Der Standard. “The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them.”
The Der Standard added, “Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this profession voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution … they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law.”
Prostitution as a response to poverty and abuse is one thing, but the results of this new study reflect something quite different. The educated women of Tehran choose prostitution in pursuit of upward mobility, as a way of sharing in the oil-based potlatch that made Tehran the world’s hottest real estate market during 2006 and 2007.
Iranians already behave like a defeated people. That is why they are so unstable, and so dangerous. The new Persian Empire masquerading as an Islamic Republic is a wounded beast. The rural misery and urban squalor drive Iranian women into the brothels of Dubai and Brussels.
The proliferation of Iranian prostitutes in Western Europe as well as the Arab world helps explain the country’s population trends. The European Commission’s most comprehensive surveys of human trafficking found that Iranian women made up 10-15 percent of the prostitutes working in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. ‘Fatima’ from Persia has become as familiar as ‘Natasha’ from Belarus or Uzbekistan. Iranian whores long have been a scandal in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which periodically round up and expel them.
It is hard to obtain reliable data on prostitution inside Iran itself, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has increased since Ahmadinejad became president in 2005. Anti-regime sociologists claim that at least 300,000 women are whoring in Tehran alone.
The ADNKronos website reported on April 25, 2006:
“Prostitution is on the rise in Iran … Sociologist Amanollah Gharaii Moghaddam told ADNKronos International [AKI] that he believes Iran’s deteriorating economy and the high unemployment rate among youths to be the main causes of this worrying phenomenon. In Iran, 28 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are unemployed … The age of prostitutes is increasingly younger, and girls as young as 12 are selling their bodies on Iran’s streets. Overall, the number of prostitutes is also on the rise and there are an estimated 300,000 of them in Tehran alone …
“Nevertheless, Gharaii Moghaddam says “the number isn’t so high when compared [with] the 4 million unemployed only in Tehran and the 5 million drug addicts today in Iran”.”
These distasteful facts bear directly upon Iran’s national decline, and the impulses that push the Iranian leadership toward strategic flight forward. Iran’s plunging birth rate, I observed in essays past, will burden the country with an elderly population proportionately as large as Western Europe’s within a generation, just at the point at which this impoverished country will have ceased to export oil. By 2030, Iranian society will collapse.
The crisis of modernization first of all is a crisis of faith, and the attenuation of religious faith is the root cause of the birth-rate bust in the modern world. Traditional society is everywhere fragile, not only in the Islamic world; by definition it is bounded by values and expectations handed down from the past, to which individuals must submit. Once the bands of tradition are broken and each individual may choose for herself what sort of family to rise, religious faith becomes the decisive motivation for bringing children into the world.
The collapse of traditional society has brought about a collapse of birth rates across cultures. Cultures that fail to reproduce themselves by definition are failed cultures, for the simple reason that they will cease to exist before many generations have passed.
That is why the Islamists – Muslims who seek a new theocracy – display a sense of extreme urgency. They are not conservative Muslims, for they reject Muslim society as it exists as corrupt and decadent. They are revolutionaries who want to create a new kind of totalitarian theocracy that orders every detail of human life.
The clerical regime vacillates between repressing prostitution and sanctioning it through “temporary marriages”, an arrangement permitted under Shi’ite jurisprudence. In the latter case the Muslim clergy in effect become pimps, taking a fee for sanctioning several “temporary marriages” per women per day.
These numbers cannot be verified, to be sure, but the spill-over of Iranian prostitutes into Western Europe and the Gulf states suggests that the actual numbers must be very large indeed, so large, in fact, as to help explain the frightful rate of Iran’s demographic decline. Along with Albanian, Uzbek, Chechen and Bosnian women, Iranian prostitutes are living evidence of the dissolution of the traditional Muslim society that purports to shield women from degradation.
Nothing is more threadbare than the claim of Islamists to defend Muslim womanhood. Islamic radicals [like the penny-a-marriage mullahs of Iran] are the world’s most prolific pimps. The same networks that move female flesh across borders also provide illegal passage for jihadist, and the proceeds of human trafficking often support radical Islamc terrorists. From Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur to Sarajevo to Tirana, the criminals who trade in women overlap with jihadist networks. Prostitutes serve the terror network in a number of capacities, including suicide bombing. The going rate for a Muslim woman who can pass for a European to carry a suicide bomb currently is more than US$100,000. The Persian prostitute is the camp follower of the jihadist, joined to him in a pact of national suicide.
Decades of repression of women:
Throughout the world, women still suffer from discrimination and oppression, for no reason other than their gender. In essence, the plight and suffering of women is the same for all of us. Today, major issues such as peace, social and economic development, and the spread of democracy have become unavoidably entangled with the issues of women.
Despite its defiance, the male-dominated regime is retreating step by step. Yet at the same time, a reactionary, violent and suppressive force called fundamentalism is emerging. Misogynous in character, fundamentalism or religious fanaticism, best represented by Khomeini and his successors in Iran, is threatening all the achievements of the civilized world, particularly those of women. Under the banner of Islam, the fundamentalists are denying the equality of women and men. Islamic fundamentalism establishes its thesis on the differences between the sexes and the conclusion that the male is superior, and hence, the female is a slave at his service. A parliamentarian in Iran is on record as saying, “Women must accept the reality of men dominating them, and the world must recognize the fact that men are superior.”
Ultimately, the fundamentalists do not believe women are human. One of the Iranian regime’s key ideologues says: “Women and men are equal in their humane essence, but they are two different forms of humans, with two different sets of attributes and two different psyches…”
From the fundamentalist mullahs’ perspective, sexual vice and virtue are the principal criteria for evaluation of women. The most ignoble and unforgivable of all sins is sexual wrongdoing. Piety, chastity and decency are measured by sex-related yardsticks, and seldom applied to political and social realms. Fundamentalism conceives of woman as sinister and satanic; she is the embodiment of sin and seduction. She must not step beyond her house, lest her presence in society breed sin. She must stay at home, serving her husband’s carnal desires; if she fails to comply, she is compelling her man to commit sin outside the home. The top officials of the fundamentalist regime in Iran emphasize that it is the “sacred” responsibility of a woman to serve her husband and take care of the household. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ ‘supreme leader’, had declared that “women’s first job is to be a wife and mother.” Khamenei dismissed the notion of women’s equal participation in social life in July 1997 as “negative, primitive and childish.”
When Mohammad Khatami became president in May 1997, there were optimistic predictions that changes were on the way. Despite all the propaganda, mullah Khatami and his administration’s deeds point to the fact that mullahs’ ‘moderation’ is nothing but a mirage. Khatami was just as committed to the medieval system of Velayat-Faqih that Khomeini founded. His administration was no different than previous governments, and rests on the same basis of fanatic fundamentalism. In that context, his views on women came as no surprise. Speaking to Salaam newspaper on May 11, 1997, just days before his election, Khatami declared: “One of the West’s biggest mistakes was the emancipation of women, which destroyed the family… Staying at home does not mean being pushed to the sidelines… We must not think that social activity means working outside the home. Housekeeping is among the most important of tasks.”
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami’s predecessor, who headed the powerful Council to Determine State Exigencies, is on record as declaring unequivocally that women are inferior and must be treated differently under the law: “Justice does not mean that all laws must be the same for men and women… The difference in the stature, vitality, voice, development, muscular quality, and physical strength of men and women shows that men are stronger and more capable in all fields… Men’s brains are larger… Men incline toward reasoning and rationalism while women basically tend to be emotional. These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities, duties and rights.”
Mullah Mohammad Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, also emphasized the subservience of women: “If kneeling before God were not obligatory, wives should have knelt before their husbands.” He also said: “A woman is wholly the possession of her husband, and her public life is conditional upon her husband’s consent.”
These blatantly prejudiced views shed light on how discriminatory legislation against women has been proposed, adopted, and enforced in Iran since 1979. All the existing laws in Iran, which deal with the rights of women, arise from the stereotyped presumption that men are endowed with the right to dominate women. A man can divorce his wife freely and has the right to retain custody of their children. Article 105 of the Civil Code stipulates: “In the relationship between husband and wife, heading the family is characteristic of the husband.” The Islamic Council of Guardians decreed that “a woman does not have the right to leave her home without her husband’s permission, even to attend her father’s funeral.”
There are inequalities in punishments for similar crimes. While in most cases – harsher punishments are issued for women – their credibility as witnesses and inheritance rights are half those of men. Article 115 of the Constitution specifically excludes women from the presidency. The law also excludes them from appointment to judgeships. Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, commented on December 15, 1986: “No matter at what stage of knowledge, virtue, perfection, and prudence a woman is, she does not have the right to rule… Even if a righteous accredited woman possesses all qualifications, she cannot assume a leadership position nor can she pass judgment, because she is a woman.” In the words of another Iranian official, women are “immature” and need “guardians.”
The fundamentalists look at the world and the hereafter through sex-tinted glasses. Throughout history, they have fabricated their own fantasies and moral lessons and attributed them to the Prophet Mohammad.
Contrary to all of Khatami’s attempts to put a positive spin on the mullahs’ misogynist treatment of women for international consumption, his cabinet did not include even one woman. The appointment of a woman, Massoumeh Ebtekar, as deputy for environmental protection, was supposed to reflect “moderation” and Khatami’s attention to women’s rights. But this woman vice president was no “moderate,” and was notorious as a staunch advocate of suppressing women’s rights. As a Spokesperson for the hostage-takers who captured the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, she once told an ABC Television correspondent that she was personally willing to take a gun and kill the hostages. [The New York Times, January 28, 1998]. In an interview with Die Tageszeitung on October 18, Ebtekar defended discrimination against women and medieval punishments, like stoning. In response to a question on stoning to death, Ebtekar said: “One should take the psychological and legal affairs of the society into consideration as well. If family rules and regulations are broken, it would result in many complex, grave consequences for all of the society.”
In response to a question about revoking laws such as the one stipulating that women need their husbands’ written permission to travel, she replied: “Man is responsible for the financial affairs of the family and for seeing that members of the family are not harmed. Thus, a woman needs her husband’s permission to make a trip. Otherwise, due to problems that would arise, a rift would come between them.”
Actually, it is this distorted, misogynous interpretation of Islam that provides the Iranian law and government with the basis for its sermonizing on the inferiority and subservience of women, encouraging more violence against them. As head of the Revolutionary Cultural Council, Khatami officially refused to commit the regime to the international convention banning discrimination against women – the United Nations Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW].
Reports from inside Iran reveal that the mullahs’ regime has also intensified its attacks on the population, particularly against women and youths, and harassment in the streets by ‘Hezbollah’ [Party of Allah] mercenaries is on the rise. Agence France Presse (AFP) reported on November 30, 1997 that “Iranian security forces arrested a large number of women for improper veiling or attire that was not compatible with Islamic regulations.” The AFP correspondent witnessed police forcing many young women into patrol cars in northern Tehran. About ten young women, some of whom were wearing colorful head scarves and light make-up, were witnessed in a police vehicle in Vanak’s shopping mall.
Such incidents shed light on the circumstances of girls and women in Iran. Even a brief glance reveals the catastrophic consequences of their abuse and exploitation at the hands of the fundamentalists.
State of girl children in Iran:
Girl children suffer the worst conditions in Iran today. According to the clerical regime’s rules and regulations, a girl child can virtually be bought and sold with the consent of her male guardian. Article 1041 of the Civil Code provides that ‘Marriage before puberty [nine full lunar years for girls] is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”
It has become common practice to sell or force very young girls to marry much older husbands, giving rise to all sorts of social ills. Adineh magazine wrote in summer 1991: “An 11-year-old girl was married off to a 27-year-old man. The father, who had seven daughters, received $300 for his consent. The morning after the marriage ceremonies, the girl was taken to hospital suffering from severe lacerations to her genitals.”
The state-controlled daily, Ressalat, reported on December 15, 1991, that due to extreme poverty and the absence of the most basic facilities, the deprived people of northern Khorassan sell their young girls for as little as $33. The buyers, mostly from Gonabad, take the girls away and put them to work on farms and in workshops. In the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan [southeastern Iran], girls eight-ten years old are sold by their drug-addicted parents for US$4. Children are routinely abused in the labor force, and girls as young as four are used in the brick manufacturing, carpet weaving, and textile and clothing industries.
According to the penal code, a nine-year-old girl can be punished as an adult by flogging, execution and even stoning. Given the arbitrary punishments and the virtual lack of due process of law, large numbers of children have been executed, in many cases without being officially charged or even having their identities established.
In a report on November 22, 1994, the United Nations Special Rapportuer on violence against women said “the public stoning and lashing of women serves to institutionalize violence against women. The Special Rapportuer received many allegations of such violent punishments being inflicted on women in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Brutalities on females inside prison before execution of female:
According to a special ‘religious decree’ issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, virgin women prisoners must be raped before execution to prevent their going to heaven. A Guard conducts the rape the night before their murder. The next day, the religious judge at the prison issues a marriage certificate and sends it to the victim’s family, along with a box of sweets.
Tens of thousands of women have been subjected to cruel torture and execution. One method is particularly revealing: the Revolutionary Guards fire a single bullet into the womb of female political prisoners, leaving them to bleed to death in a slow process of excruciating pain. Even pregnant women are not spared, and hundreds have been executed with their unborn children. Many defenseless female prisoners are held in what are euphemistically referred to as ‘residential quarters’ in prisons, where the Guards systematically rape them in order to totally destroy them.
In an eyewitness report, Amnesty International revealed how the small children of many young women in Evin Prison are viciously abused. Witness Helmut Szimkus, a German engineer, told Amnesty International they are kept “because they are an asset to the prison authorities for gaining confessions.” Szimkus, who was released after serving a lengthy sentence in an Iranian prison, said he witnessed several cases where Iranian children were tortured in the presence of their parents. “One time these guys [torturers] raped a nine-year-old girl. The parents had to watch. The father shook and rattled so badly that he could no longer sign the espionage confession they put before him.”
The social environment imbedded in the misogynous views, laws and policies of the fundamentalist regime naturally spawns corruption, making it increasingly difficult for women to survive. Women bear the brunt of the economic difficulties and social barriers and restrictions. Large numbers of deprived women have been forced into prostitution or become addicted to drugs. Meanwhile, the clerical regime, touting Islam, claims to accord “divine respect” to women.
“It is appalling. Never has prostitution been so rampant. But everything is done behind the veil,” Mahin, a 47-year old female Iranian jurist purged by the mullahs, told Helen Kami, the French journalist for Elle magazine who visited Iran in January 1997. Kami writes: “Prostitutes regularly roam Gandhi Street in north Tehran. At 5 p.m., we go to Istanbuli Street, also in north Tehran. The cab drivers, looking for wealthy or foreign patrons, are driving slowly. In exchange for only $1 [500 Tomans], they can provide you with girls, alcoholic beverages, heroin and hashish.”
Many more of the social consequences of the mullahs’ rule date back to the destructive, meaningless Iran-Iraq war, dragged on by Khomeini’s regime for eight years. In this case, too, women and children suffered most. Since it was very difficult for a widow to provide for herself and raise a family in Iran’s highly patriarchal society, multitudes turned to prostitution as the only means of survival. According to the Associated Press of July 21, 1989, the arrest of a war widow for prostitution touched off a national scandal, because the woman had prostituted herself as a last resort to feed her family.
Ressalat, a state-controlled newspaper, reported on July 3, 1991: “Three large brothels were discovered and shut down in Tehran in the past month alone. Thirty-eight women were arrested. Most of the arrested women said during interrogation that they had turned to prostitution as a result of poverty.”
Unemployment and skyrocketing prices make it impossible for millions of Iranians to get married and raise a family. At a seminar on the difficulties of getting married, Ayatollah Haeri Shirazi proposed in January 1997 that authorities promote an unofficial, temporary marriage called sigheh, that can last less than 24 hours and be repeated as many times as desired. This form of exploitation of women has become very widespread, and legitimizes sexual relations with very young girls. Quoting Mahin, the Iranian jurist, the Elle magazine reporter wrote in January 1997 about the life of a 9-year-old girl whose destitute parents arranged for her to be a sigheh. The man visits his temporary ‘wife’ every weekend at her father’s house, for which privilege he pays her father about US$12 per visit.
The desperate women forced into prostitution, as a direct result of the regime’s policies, have to endure very harsh punishments, including public flogging and death by stoning. In one case, a religious judge convicted 17 members of an alleged prostitution ring. Among them were 14 brothers and sisters from a single family. Ten women and one man were stoned to death; two women and another man were hanged.
Marriage for minutes:
According to Shia version of Sharia law, marrying a girl [either adult or infant] is legitimate in Iran. Any male can marry a girl or woman in that country, which is under the cruel grips of Mullacracy for decades, simply by performing a religious ritual, which takes less than a minute. In most cases, such ‘Marriage for Minutes’ or ‘Mut’ah Marriage’ take place to meet mere sexual desires of the men.
First of all, let us have a glimpse on the existing marriage law in Islamic Republic of Iran. In Iran, marriage law has become extremely complicated, confusing and mostly against the rights of women. Let me begin with a quote from a fatwa by the late and unlamented Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, where the readers will possibly understand the state of mind of the Islamist clergies on this particular issue:
“A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual acts such as foreplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed.
“A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not committed a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life. But this girl will not count as one of the man’s four permanent wives. He also is not permitted to marry the girl’s sister.”
Other forms of sexual abuse inflicted on children by Muslim clergies include fondling of genitals, coercing a child to fondle the abuser’s genitals, masturbation with the child either as participant or observer, oral sex, anal or vaginal penetration by penis, finger or any other object.
Another technique used by Muslim clergies is called ‘thighing’. The child’s legs are pressed together and the abuser inserts his penis between the thighs of the little girl. This was approved of by Ayatollah Khomeini who in his Little Green Book asserted “It is not illegal for an adult male to ‘thigh’ or enjoy a young girl who is still in the age of weaning; meaning to place his penis between her thighs, and to kiss her.”
Full text of ruling by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini on marriage:
“A woman may legally belong to a man in one of two ways; by continuing marriage or temporary marriage. In the former, the duration of the marriage need not be specified; in the latter, it must be stipulated, for example, that it is for a period of an hour, a day, a month, a year, or more.
“A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual act such as foreplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed. A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not committed a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life. But this girl will not count as one of the man’s four permanent wives. He also is not permitted to marry the girl’s sister.
“A father or a paternal grandfather has the right to marry off a child who is insane or has not reached puberty by acting as its representative. The child may not annul such a marriage after reaching puberty or regaining his sanity, unless the marriage is to his manifest disadvantage.
“Any girl who is of age, that is, capable of understanding what is in her own best interest, if she wishes to get married and is a virgin, must procure the authorization of her father or paternal grandfather. The permission of her mother or brother is not required.
“A marriage is annulled if a man finds that his wife is afflicted with one of the seven following disabilities: madness, leprosy, eczema, blindness, paralysis with after-effects, malformation of the urinary and genital tracts or of the genital-tract and rectum through conjoining thereof, or vaginal malformation making Coitus impossible.
“If a wife finds out after marriage that her husband is suffering from mental illness, that he is a castrate, impotent, or has had his testicles excised, she may apply for annulment of her marriage.
“If a wife has her marriage annulled because her husband is unable to have sexual relations with her either vaginally or anally, he must pay her as damages one-half of her Mehryeh [her price] specified in the marriage contract. If the husband or wife annuls the marriage for any of the above-mentioned reasons, the man owes nothing to the woman if they have had sexual relations together; if they have not, he must pay her the full amount of the dowry.
“A Muslim woman may not marry a non-Moslem man; nor may a Moslem man marry a non-Moslem woman in continuing marriage, but he may take a Jewish or Christian woman in temporary marriage.
“A woman who has contracted a continuing marriage does not have the right to go out of the house without her husband’s permission; she must remain at his disposal for the fulfillment of any one of his desires, and may not refuse herself to him except for a religiously valid reason. If she is totally submissive to him, the husband must provide her with her food, clothing, and lodging, whether or not he has the means to do so.
“A woman who refuses herself to her husband is guilty, and may not demand from him food, clothing, lodging, or any later sexual relations; however, she retains the right to be paid damages if she is repudiated.
“If a man who has married a girl who has not reached puberty possesses her sexually before her ninth birthday, inflicting traumatisms upon her, he has no right to repeat such an act with her.
“A man who has contracted a continuing marriage may not leave his wife for so long a time as to allow her to question the validity of the marriage; however, he is not obligated to spend one night out of every four with her.
“A husband must have sexual relations with his wife at least once in every four months.
“A woman who has been temporarily married in exchange for a previously established dowry has no right to demand that her daily expenses be paid by her husband, even when she becomes pregnant.
“A temporary marriage even though only one of convenience is – nevertheless legal.
“A man must not abstain from having sexual relations with his temporary wife for more than four months.
“If a father [or paternal grandfather] marries off his daughter [or granddaughter] in her absence without knowing for a certainty that she is alive, the marriage becomes null and void as soon as it is established that she was dead at the time of the marriage.
“To look upon the face and hair of a girl who has not reached puberty, if it is done without intention of enjoyment thereof, and if one is not afraid of succumbing to temptation, may be tolerated. It is however recommended that one not look upon her belly or thighs, which must remain covered.
“To look upon the faces and hands of Jewish or Christian women, if this is not done with intention of enjoyment thereof, and if one does not fear temptation, is tolerated.
“A woman must hide her body and her hair from the eyes of men. It is highly recommended that she also hide them from those of pre-pubic boys, if she suspects that they may look upon her with lust.
“If a man is called upon, for medical reasons, to look upon a woman other than his wife and to touch her body, he is permitted to do so, but if he can give such care by only looking at the body he must not touch it, and if he can give it by only touching, he must not look at it.
“A woman who becomes pregnant as a result of adultery must not have an abortion. If a man commits adultery with an unmarried woman, and subsequently marries her, the child born of that marriage will be a bastard unless the parents can be sure it was conceived after they were married.
“A child born of an adulterous father is legitimate.
“The best person to breast-feed a newborn baby it its own mother. It is preferable that she not ask to be paid for such service, but that her husband pays her for it of his own free will. If the sum the mother asks for is greater than that charged by a wet nurse, the husband is free to take the child from its mother and turn it over to the wet nurse.
“A man who repudiates his wife must be of sound mind and past the age of puberty. He must do so of his own free will and without any constraint; therefore, if the formula for divorce is spoken in jest the marriage is not annulled.
“A woman temporarily married, say, for a month or a year, has her marriage automatically annulled at the end of that time, or at any other time when the husband releases her from the balance of her engagement. It is not necessary for this that there be any witnesses, or that the woman has had her period.
“A woman who has not yet reached the age of nine or a menopausal woman may remarry immediately after divorce, without waiting the hundred days that are otherwise required.
“A woman who has had her ninth birthday, or who has not yet entered menopause, must wait for three menstrual periods after her divorce before being allowed to remarry. If a woman who has not reached her ninth birthday or who has not entered menopause gets temporarily married, she must, at the end of the contract or when the husband has released her from part of it, wait two menstrual periods or forty-five days before marrying again.
“If the father or paternal grandfather of a boy has him marry a woman for a temporary marriage, he may prematurely cancel it in the boy’s interest, even if the marriage was contracted before the boy reached the age of puberty. If, for example, a fourteen-year-old boy has been married off to a woman for a period of two years, they may return her freedom to the woman before this time has run its course; but a continuing marriage cannot be broken in this way.
“If a man repudiates his wife without informing her of it, and continues to meet her expenses for a period of, say, a year, and at the end of that time informs her that he got a divorce a year earlier and shows her proof of it, he may require that she return to him anything he has bought or given her during that time, provided that she has not used it up or consumed it, in which case he cannot demand its return.”
“If a child dies within the mother’s womb and it is a danger to her life to leave it there, it must be extracted in the easiest way possible; it can. if need be, cut into pieces; this should be done by the woman’s husband or a midwife.
“A woman who wishes to pursue her studies toward the end of being able to earn her living through respectable work, and who has a male teacher, may do so if she keeps her face covered and has no contact with men; but if-that is inevitable, and religious and moral tenets are thus undermined, she must give up her studies. Girls and boys who attend coeducational classes in grammar schools, high schools, universities, or other teaching establishments, and who, in order to legalize such a situation, wish to contract a temporary marriage may do so without the permission of their fathers. The same applies if the boy and girl are in love but hesitate to ask for such permission.
Continued oppression by Mullah Regime in Iran is pushing the entire nation into severe poverty, unemployment as well as numerous social problems. Taking the advantage of such situation, many of the wealthy males in Iran are continuing to buy girl children under ‘Marriage for Minutes’ contract. Moreover, people in administration, inside Revolutionary Guards as well as judiciaries are also hunting female flesh either with the trap of such temporary marriage or simply by blackmailing socially oppressed women. In Iran, obtaining a divorce certificate by most of the women is only possible, if she would offer sexual company to the judges in Sharia courts.
Members of intelligence agencies as well as Revolutionary Guards would use blackmailing tactics by putting adultery allegation on any woman, they target for meeting sexual desire. In most cases, such women being falsely labelled with adultery accusations are forced to give sexual company to these intelligence or Revolutionary Guard men to avert death by stoning.
Such situation inside Iran is forcing many of the sexually abused women and girls into prostitution. Especially situation of the girl children are real vulnerable.
Though Iranian official sources figure the number of prostitutes in Tehran only at 84,000, it is believed that the real number is exceeding two hundred thousand. While Mullahs continue to claim that prostitution is very much confined within authorized ‘Comfort Houses’ in the Islamic Republic, it is well known to many that, in today’s Iran, women and girls are offered to potential overseas customers at various so-called five star hotels as well as restaurants with ‘Islamic Cabins’. Each of such cabins measuring approximately 50 square feet is surrounded by 10 feet wooden walls and a door. Inside is a so-called dining table, which is basically used for sexual purpose. A man can spend one hour inside this Islamic Cabin with a female by spending roughly US$ 40. At the front portion of such so-called restaurants, number of females will be seen sitting wearing Islamic veils, which will be ready to give company to the potential customer. Once the woman is selected, the restaurant manager, a clergy will perform rituals of the Marriage for Minutes, before the ‘couple’ would enter the cabin.
Women are offered to guests in a number of hotels in Iran by the room-service staffs. There are prayer rooms in each of the hotels, where rituals of Marriage for Minutes take place. Most of the large hotels in Iran are operated by Revolutionary Guards. And most importantly, every day once or twice, rooms will be searched by members of Revolutionary Guards, while there are hidden cameras inside each of the rooms. But, when a customer will take a ‘wife’ from the hotel management under Marriage for Minute contract, the hidden cameras will be covered as well searches will be paused. In other words, prostitution is rather promoted by the Mullah Regime in Iran.
While Islamist apologists may argue that sex slavery exists around the world, exploiting innocent girls, women, boys and men, the fact will remain that in these Muslim nations this human-rights abuse has become institutionalized, with government-run brothels in Iran, for instance, offering what is called Mut’ah [Marriage for Minutes allowed by Shia version of Islam] or a temporary contract that allows men to ‘marry’ for sexual purposes women other than the four concurrent wives. Many of these brothels are near ‘holy sites’, so that male pilgrims can “relieve their urges” while on a ‘religious’ pilgrimage.
There are roughly 300 brothels only in Tehran. Head of Iran’s Interpol bureau believes that sex trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today, which continues very much within the knowledge of ruling clergies, government officials, and members of Revolutionary Guard.
There is sex trade in Iran even in an open manner, where owners of brothel would circulate flyers drawing attention of the ‘virgins’ in offering ‘noble service’.
And here is the extract from one of such flyers, which I discovered, while researching the issue:
“Bismellah Her Rahmanir Rahim
Temporary Marriage [Marriage is among the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad]
In order to elevate the spiritual atmosphere, create proper psychological conditions and tranquility of mind, the Province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan has created centers for temporary marriage [just next door to the shrine] for those brothers who are on pilgrimage to the shrine of our eighth Imam, Imam Reza, and who are far away from their spouses.
To that end, we call on all our sisters who are virgins, who are between the ages of 12 and 35 to cooperate with us. Each of our sisters who signs up will be bound by a two year contract with the province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan and will be required to spend at least 25 days of each month temporarily married to those brothers who are on pilgrimage. The period of the contract will be considered as a part of the employment experience of the applicant. The period of each temporary marriage can be anywhere between 5 hours to 10 days. The prices are as follows:
5 hour temporary marriage – 50,000 Tomans [$50 US]
One day temporary marriage – 75,000 Tomans [$75 US]
Two day temporary marriage – 100,000 Tomans [$100 US]
Three day temporary marriage – 150,000 Tomans [$150 US]
Between 4 and 10 day temporary marriage – 300,000 Tomans [$300 US]
Our sisters who are virgins will receive a bonus of 100,000 Tomans [$100 US] for the removal of their hymen.
After the expiration of the two year contract, should our sisters still be under 35 years of age and should they be so inclined, they can be added to the waiting list of those who are seeking long-term temporary marriage. The employed sisters are obligated to donate 5% of their earnings to the Shrine of Imam Reza. We ask that all the sisters who are interested in applying, to furnish two full-length photographs [fully hijabed and properly veiled], their academic diplomas, proof of their virginity and a certificate of good physical and psychological health which they can obtain through the health and human services of the township of their residence. Please forward all compiled material and send to the below address by the 31st of the month of Ordibehesht, 1389 [May 21st, 2010].
Attention: For sisters who are below 14 years of age, a written consent from their fathers or male guardian is required.
Address: Mash’had, Shrine of Imam Reza, Shaheed Navab-Safavi, Kossar passage, Bureau of Temporary Marriages or call Haji Mahmood Momtaz: 98-511-222-5790.
For further information, please refer to the Quds’eh Razavi website www.aqrazavi.org”
Mullahs spoiled my life:
Amineh [not real name] divorced her husband, just two months after marriage, as she found him to be drug addict. She said when she went to the Sharia judge for a court order allowing her to divorce her husband, the judge in usual Islamic dress, proposed her to spend few nights with him for such order. She said: “I had to virtually turn into a concubine of the judge for several weeks, till he settled my divorce issue. I even became pregnant, while the judge managed for abortion in a government hospital, secretly, just by using his official status accorded by Mullahs in Iran.”
Amineh appealed to Iranian women in the world, who might be reading this interview to do anything possible in ending the devil regime of Mullahs. She said: “If you can do this, I will kiss your feet and hand.”
With a degree in medical science, Amineh’s miseries began few years back, when her father was arrested by Revolutionary Guards, as a suspected spy. He was brutally tortured in custody.
Two days later, when Aminey came to know about the location of her father, she decided to visit the Revolutionary Guard’s prison cell along with her mother, who also was 37 at that time.
She said, “When we went to the prison cell, one of the members of the Revolutionary Guards pretended to be kind on us and promised to let us meet him [father]. Two hours later, it was almost late evening; the same man came out with smile in face and said, my father was waiting for us inside. We hurriedly went to meet him with some fruits and personal stuff.
“We were seated in a small room, where we found blood stain on walls. There was a dirty bed at the corner. We thought, it was the room, where they might have kept my father.
“Now the same man came with two senior members of Revolutionary Guard and jokingly told them ‘here are two gifts for you for this evening’. One man forcibly pulled my mother in the bed and raped her in front of me and two other officers. My mother was crying for help. I tried to rescue her, but, those two men held me till the officer was done. This way, three of them raped my mother.
“Then one of them looking at me said, it is now your turn. I sought mercy from them in the name of Khuda [God] saying I was still a virgin. They started laughing and told me that I will be in heaven if I can lose my virginity in the hands of Revolutionary Guards.
“My mother, who was just raped caught legs of one of the officers and appealed not to spoil me. They said, she is the daughter of a spy, and we must punish her. One of them even threatened that, if we do not obey their instruction, they will kill my father immediately.
“One of them approached me and said, get ready for losing your virginity and becoming the temporary wife of the soldiers of God.
“I turned unconscious as one of them started raping me. It was bleeding. But those animals did not stop. Later I was told by my mother that, they raped me for the rest of the night and were chanting various joyous slogans.
“Next morning they sent me and my mother home and promised to release my father in hours. Three hours later, my father was also sent back in critical condition. He was immediately rushed to the hospital but doctors refused to admit him as he was released from prison cell of revolutionary guards. Later we managed to get him treated at home with the help of my campus colleagues. We found serious injuries in his mole. Those animals inserted ice into his mole and applied various forms of torture tactics. Six days, after fighting with severe pain and mental trauma, my father died.
“One year later, I was married to a local businessman. Just in days, I realized that he was a damn drug addict. He even was trying to offer me to his friends in exchange of drugs. That made me determined to divorce him.
“When I got my divorce order being already sexually exploited by the Sharia judge, I was still trying to hold my dignity by joining into the profession of a medical practitioner. Sub subsequently I joined in a small local hospital as attending doctor. But miseries returned here again. One day a pregnant woman came to me for suggestions. She was accompanied by her husband, who is an influential member of the local committee of the ruling party. While I was diagnosing my patient, he husband refused to stay outside. Instead, he was trying to make sexual signals through eyes, which I pretended to be ignoring. Next day he came alone and told me that, I must meet him at his business office when I am done. I harshly rejected his indecent proposal and shouted saying don’t you know I am a doctor? He threatened me saying, if I would disobey him, he will put me into legal hassle. I decided to stand firm on my position and said, he could do anything as he desired, but I will never agree to his proposal. He left the hospital angrily. Next morning I was arrested on charge of adultery with a hospital colleague. I knew this false allegation was cooked by the same leader.
“But the most surprising thing is, I was taken in the business office of that leader by local policed instead of police station. Immediately I realized that those police officers were purchased by that man. He locked me in a room for consecutive five days. Each day, I was sexually abused.
“Then I really made my mind. It was impossible for any woman in Iran, under the current Sharia rulers to remain pure. So, I entered into the profession of prostitution.”
In response to my question, how things can change in Iran, Amineh said “Only democracy. Ousting the Mullahs from power can save Iranians. We have become virtual slaves in the grips of Mullahs. We want freedom! Mullahs have spoiled my life!”
Source » weeklyblitz