close button
Switch to Iranwire Light?
It looks like you’re having trouble loading the content on this page. Switch to Iranwire Light instead.
Features

She's 10, He's 22. He was Allowed to Marry her

September 4, 2019
Mahrokh Gholamhosseinpour
6 min read
Stills from a video of the marriage ceremony of a 10-year-old girl in the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad
Stills from a video of the marriage ceremony of a 10-year-old girl in the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad

A wedding video depicting a bearded groom and his pre-pubescent bride has turned new attention to the issue of child marriage in Iran and prompted an investigation by local authorities, who confirmed in an interview with IranWire that the girl in question is just 10.

“I was just at her school and, since the video was published, I have been asking questions from the trusted people in the neighborhood and the clergyman who performed the marriage ceremony,” said Naser Mokhtari, head of the Welfare Bureau in the county of Bahmai, in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province.

The official also said that the man in the video is 22, not 28, as some have reported. 
Mokhtari promised to submit a comprehensive report to the province’s Welfare Organization but suggested that in the meantime, “the media should show some patience because until our investigations are complete we cannot offer any accurate information.”

Shortly afterwards, Javad Heydarian — the journalist who broke the story by posting the video on Twitter — tweeted that since the girl is under 11 and a judge has decided that she is not ready for marriage, Hojatoleslam Ali Saeedi, head of Bahmai’s Justice Bureau, has annulled the marriage and issued an indictment against the culprits.

Shocking Statistics

Underage marriage is an ongoing source of controversy in Iran, where earlier this year a bill to increase the minimum age of marriage to 13 years for girls and 16 year for boys was defeated in parliament.

In certain areas, child marriage is still officially recognized and registered. In marginalized provinces such as Khuzestan and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, where tribal customs and traditions endure, such marriages are not uncommon.

In an interview last year with the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), Mohammad Ali Taghavi, director general of  Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad’s Organization for Civil Registration, offered some startling numbers [Persian link]. He revealed that in 2018 alone, there were nine marriages in the province involving children under 10 and another dozen with children under 11. Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad also registered 25 under-12, 63 under-13, 124 under-14, 225 under-15, 312 under-17, and 384 under-18 marriages.

The journalist Javad Heydarian, who was born in the provincial capital of Yasuj and is intimately familiar with the prevailing cultural traditions in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, believes the issue is rooted in poverty and the remoteness of the province.

“Before talking to you I was talking with the director general of the provincial Welfare Organization,” he says. “He was speaking from the home of the same girl whose wedding ceremony we saw in the video. He was telling me that the practice has cultural and tribal roots, that the people here still follow their past traditions and that surely this won't be the last such case.”

“Such horrifying cultural divides are inevitable because we have moved so quickly from a tribal and nomadic lifestyle with its own traditions and mores to a modern, urban way of living,” Heydarian adds. “In a city like Yasuj, such cultural divides might not be very noticeable because the people are in everyday contact with the media and with the tools and the technology of mass communication and receive up-to-date news and information. But in marginal towns, such marriages happen more often and their roots can be found in the poverty and deprivation in these areas.”

Heydarian says that even the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is aware of the problem. In 1994, Khamenei paid a visit to the province and in a public speech in Yasuj “talked about injustice to women in the province and the fact that a 70-year-old man had taken a 14-year-old girl as his wife,” the journalist explained.

“He talked about parents marrying off girls without their consent. If more than 20 years ago the leader of the country brought up this issue, it means that even then this crisis was serious,” the journalist adds.

A 'Normal' Occurrence

Likak, the capital of Bahmai County — where the couple in the controversial wedding video live—  is a case in point when it comes to poverty and underdevelopment, Heydarian explains. “This area has been abandoned. In this city there is no cultural center and no place to go for entertainment. Naturally, the only available choice is to marry,” he says.

Fatemeh N., a primary school teacher in Likak, tells IranWire that the video did not surprise her at all. She says that every few years she attends wedding ceremonies where one of the couple is a child, and that in her area, underage marriages are considered normal.

“If my father or mother read the kinds of reactions people make on the internet, they'd think those people are Martians, that they must have gone crazy,” she says.

Fatemeh does not believe that changing the laws will have much impact on the dominant culture in the province. “The situation is much worse in villages and areas on the margins of the cities,” she says.

Fatemeh also says that things could have been “even worse” for the girl in the video. “At least she wasn't forced to become the second or third wife of a man as old as his father,” she explains. “What happens a lot is that they use the cover of marriage to sell the girl and send her to the home of a man who could have been her father or even grandfather. Then they use the money to solve their financial problems.”

The school teacher says that she's heard from people in her neighborhood that the wedding in the video was “just symbolic” and that the marriage “isn't supposed to be consummated” for another six years. “If you look carefully you notice that the bride in the video appears not upset but happy,” she says. “I heard that this girl is the child of divorced parents and she did not receive proper care or love at home.”

Like Heydarian, Fatemeh also believes that the root of the problem is economic. “These people are downright poor. Their major source of income is agriculture or animal husbandry and their biggest entertainment is, for instance, going to the bazaars of nearby towns like Behbahan,” she says.

There is also a “cultural backwardness,” the teacher adds. “They believe that they must marry off a girl as soon as possible so that she doesn't bring shame and dishonor to the family. They believe that a 20-year-old girl is an old maid. They take pride in marrying off their daughters as soon as possible and even compete with each other.”

It's a mentality that Fatemeh, 28, is all too familiar with. “Many a time my mother has scolded me by saying that I have brought shame to my father for being single still while so-and-so’s 13-year-old daughter is happily married,” she says in a sad voice.

 

Related Coverage:

Children Main Victims of Iran’s “Temporary Marriages,” March 8, 2018

Child Marriage or Child Rape?, April 5, 2018

Underage Marriage in Iran, July 11, 2016

Bleak Future for Girls as Report Finds Underage Marriage and Sexual Abuse on the Rise, August 26, 2015

Is Child Marriage Legal in Iran?, July 10, 2015

Underage Marriage on the Rise in Iran, January 22, 2015

Girls Without A Future: The Rise of Forced Marriage in Iran, July 14, 2014

 

comments

Features

International Judo Federation Changes Twitter Name to #ISupportMollaei

September 2, 2019
IranWire
3 min read
International Judo Federation Changes Twitter Name to #ISupportMollaei