Jaajef wa G-L FYI Yeenduleem ak jaama Tony ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Iran's Defender of Women An Ayatollah Says They Can Be President And Even Say 'No' to Their Husbands By Geneive Abdo International Herald Tribune Paris, Friday, November 26, 1999 QOM, Iran - The ayatollah looks and behaves like many others. His long beard and clerical robes create a medieval persona. But what comes out of Yusef Sanaie's mouth is different. He believes it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to be president of the Islamic republic or even the supreme spiritual leader, a post generally believed here to be ordained by God. Also, women should divorce husbands who contract venereal diseases or who marry more than one wife without the first wife's consent. And women should feel free to say ''no'' to sex with their husbands. Ayatollah Sanaie is raising more than eyebrows with a recently published fatwa, or Islamic decree, granting women many rights they now lack. ''Since I was young, I never liked the way women were treated,'' he said, seated cross-legged in the reception room of his office in this holy Shiite city. ''The bad treatment of women since the Islamic Revolution contradicts historical evidence in Islam.'' Religious and civil laws in Iran are not on the side of women. The value of a woman's life is half that of a man's in terms of blood money. Her testimony in court is worth half that of a man's. She rarely is granted custody of children after an early age. And if her husband dies, his father gains authority over the couple's assets. It is no surprise, then, that when Iranian couples marry, the woman's attention is focused upon prenuptial contracts about divorce. ''On the happiest day of our lives, women in Iran think only about what will happen if they get divorced,'' said Roya Monaghem, a women's rights advocate. ''We try to draft documents that will give us more rights in case we get divorced. It's a tragedy.'' Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women have made significant gains compared with life under the shahs. More women now attend universities. More work outside the home and earn wages close to those of men. Also, women have entered the government. One of Iran's vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, a writer, is a woman, and there are several women in Parliament. Many are on city and local councils throughout the country. Yet, on matters relating to family law and personal status, the most sensitive religious and cultural issues, women are losers. ''Traditionalism did not require the status of women to be changed, but modernity does,'' Ayatollah Sanaie said. ''I am interested in turning my fatwa into law.'' Ayatollah Sanaie's followers can adopt his fatwa, but without legislation passed by Parliament, it cannot be enforced in court, where the Sharia, or Islamic code, is the law of the land. It is highly unlikely such changes will be considered by the current Parliament, in which the majority of 270 seats are held by conservatives. There is also little hope, according to many women's activists, even if reformist candidates win a majority in elections in February. ''Even reformers have traditional views about women's personal rights,'' said Mehranguiz Kar, a lawyer specializing in divorce and custody cases. ''Only if we develop a pluralistic political system and secularists gain seats in Parliament, can we have any hope for change.'' Conservative clerics have voiced outrage over Ayatollah Sanaie's decree. ''What nonsense is this, that a woman can be the supreme clerical leader?'' asked Hojatolislam Mohammed Eftekhari from the city of Qazvin. Even President Mohammed Khatami, who came to power in a landslide victory in 1997 with the strong support of women, draws a distinction between a woman's personal and public status. Mr. Khatami advocates political and intellectual advancement for women but remains silent on issues relating to divorce, custody and marital rights. Iranian women tell endless stories of losing their children to their husbands and of being deprived of a reasonable divorce settlement. According to law, the father can gain custody of a son after he becomes 2 years old and a daughter after she becomes 7. A woman can win custody only if she can prove that her husband is insane, corrupt or violent. ''These things are impossible to prove,'' Mrs. Kar said. ''The amount of documentation a woman must provide to prove that her husband is an unsuitable parent is unreasonable. A woman must also have several witnesses to such charges against her husband, and who could possibly have witnesses?'' The few women who manage to gain rights generally granted to mothers in the West do so only through extreme measures. ''My husband wouldn't divorce me and I didn't have the proof required to divorce him, so I blackmailed him,'' said Faribah, who was married to a physician. ''I knew he was involved in all sorts of corruption at his hospital, so I told him I was going to turn him in unless he divorced me and gave me the children.'' _____________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------