Women's Rights in Iran

Do you think 13 years old is old enough to get married? To me this is crazy at 13 years old a person is still a child with a lot of growing up to do. In Iran a girl 13 years of age can legally get married. There are many negative effects of getting married at such a young age and many marriages end up in control by the husband. About 1 in every 3 women in Iran is abused throughout their lifetime (Esfandiari, 2003) and in Iran it is just a part of their culture. There are things the U.S. can do to help the women gain their rights and have a higher standard of living. Women have very little rights in Iran and it just isn’t fair. In Iran the country follows the Sharia, which means Islamic law. “What constitutes childhood according to Sharia differs from that of the Convention of the Right of the Child, which describes “anybody under the age of eighteen as a child” and to which Iran is signatory.” (Tremayne, 2006) Although the Iranian government signed this CRC they did not put it into action because of their religious practices and set the age of legal marriage to 13, unless their legal guardian and another source like a doctor/judge acknowledged they were ready. Early marriage in Iran has different effects on an adolescent’s physical and psychosocial health. Some of the effects of early marriage are risk of early pregnancy, premature labor, complications during delivery, low birth weights of the babies and poor survival chances for the babies. These are all really important issues that women face when having children at such a young age so why do these women continue to marry at such a young age? And why does society not consider it a concern? These young adolescents bodies are not developed enough yet so their body acts differently than say a woman’s at 20 years old. “Adolescents under 16 face four times the risk of maternal death as women over 20.” (Mangiaterra, Pendse, McClure, & Rosen, 2008) The body at a young age just cannot handle all the changes so