Among the 35,000 plus women gathered in Beijing and Huairou in September 1995, ten were from The Feminist Majority. Here are on-site accounts that Feminist Majority Delegation members posted on The Feminist Majority Foundation Online throughout the conference. |
September 2, 1995 - Colleen Dermody
Plenaries and Workshops Generate Strategies and Controversy
Lifting the veil and ending the repression of Iranian women was the topic of the workship entitled "Sexual Apartheid." The sometimes heated debate during the two hour panel discussion about the abuses against women by the Islamic Homa focused attention on the difficult and sometimes life threatening plight of women in countries where Islamic Fundamentalist regimes are in power.
The workship panelists, members of the Women's Defense Committees of Iran, bravely spoke with at least eight fundamentalist Islamic men and women observers in the room.
Their discussion gave information on the loss of legal rights of women in Iran and the increase of rape and other types of violence often committed by husbands and government officials. The panelists gave examples of other countries such as Algeria, Egypt and Sudan where similar Islamic Fundamentalist regimes are also in power and the repression of women is extreme.
The case of a pediatrician, Dr. Homa Darabi, who was trained and licensed to practice medicine in New Jersey, New York and California, was used as an example of the extreme repression of women in Iran.
Darabi, a strong supporter of the 1979 democratic revolution in Iran, was fired in 1990 from her professorial position at Tehran University. At the time, Darabi was widely heralded as the leading pediatrician at Tehran. As a result of the politically motivated dismissal, she began a private medical practice but became the target of government threats because of her continued refusal to wear a veil. She argued that they interfered with her ability to adequately examine and treat her patients, but was ultimately forced to close her private practice. On Febraury 21, 1994 Dr. Darabi, in protest of the horrific oppression of women, symbolized by the forced wearing of a veil, publicly set herself on fire in a village square located in Northern Tehran.
According to workshop panelists, hundreds of women in villages and towns throughout Iran have burned themselves to protest repression and lack of food for their starving children.
Also, according to panelists, women are protesting conditions in Iran despite threats and intimidation. Seven months ago, over 100,000 women and men marched in the Islam Shabc district of Tehran, the capital of Iran.
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
