Background

The Islamic Republic of Iran (‘Iran’) has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which enshrine the equal rights of men and women. However, Iran remains one of the few countries yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. According to the Global Gender Gap Index 2023, Iran ranked 143rd out of 146 countries. The emergence of the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' movement has highlighted the increased use of excessive force, marked by arrests and detention of women and those advocating for women’s rights. More recently, the deterioration of women’s rights is evidenced by the continued detention of women activists, many of them charged with broadly defined national security offences, some facing the death penalty, as well as by intensified enforcement of compulsory veiling.

Objectives

n her first report to the General Assembly (A/79/371), the Special Rapporteur announced she would apply a gendered lens throughout her mandate when assessing the human rights situation in Iran. Her upcoming report to the Human Rights Council will focus on gender related killings and other forms of violence against women and girls. Gender-related killingsare the extreme manifestation of existing forms of gender-based violence and constitute a violation of, among others, the right to life, to equality, dignity and non-discrimination, and not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Depending on the context and circumstances, they may also constitute crimes under international criminal law. They are based on a person’s gender or sex as well as perceived transgression of the gender norms in their community or society and may occur both in the private and public spheres in diverse circumstances and settings.

The Special Rapporteur will apply a holistic approach in examining gender related killings against women and girls. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) defines femicide as:

An intentional killing with a gender-related motivation … driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, or harmful social norms.

For the purposes of this report, the Special Rapporteur is not only interested in cases of intentional killing but also on States’ complicity in gender-related killings. A State may enable the killing of women by non-State actors through legislative frameworks. Examples include laws that distinguish so-called ‘honour killings’ from murder and excuse such violence by reducing the penalties available for perpetrators, or by creating loopholes that may be exploited by perpetrators to avoid conviction altogether. In other cases, States may fail to investigate, prosecute, and punish perpetrators.

In addition, when a State bears significant responsibility for arbitrary deprivation of life, it likely indicates broader failures to respect other rights. This report adopts the approach taken by Agnés Callamard’s, a former the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on a gender-sensitive approach to arbitrary killings:

A gender-based intersectional analysis calls for a greater conceptual and policy- based integration between the protection of the right to life and the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights. The deprivation of women’s life as a result of the failure by the State to realize socioeconomic rights, has been progressively analysed as falling within the remit of article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (A/HRC/35/23).

In other words, investigation of violations of the right to life of women and girls will necessarily lead to a gendered examination of civil, political, social, cultural, and economic rights violations—the contributing factors that culminate in lethal violence.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

Please provide information concerning any of the following issues addressed below.

Instances of violence against women and girls (2020-2024)

• Gender related killings
  • Death sentences and executions of women and girls, compared to men: frequency and trends; method of execution; nature of offences; due process observations; detention conditions.
  • Use of lethal force against women and girls by State agencies (e.g. unlawful deaths in custody of women and girls; unlawful killing by security agencies): statistical data and case details; state response and investigations; preventive measures.
  • So-called ‘honour killings’ of women, compared to men: statistical data, trends, and case details; state response and investigations; preventive measures.
  • Killings of women as a result of intimate-partner violence: statistical data, trends, and case details; state response and investigations; preventive measures; support systems for at-risk women.
  • Other forms of gender related killings or deaths arising from harmful practices.
• Other forms of violence against women and girls (e.g. sexual violence, forced marriages, intimate partner violence, torture, corporal punishment, digital and online harassment): statistical data, trends, and case details; state response and investigations; preventive measures; support systems.
• Alternatively, inputs may focus on the differentiated impact of the above-mentioned violence of women and girls on specific groups:
  • Groups based on ethnicity, religion, language, national origin, sexual orientation among others;
  • Cases of violence against girls under the age of 18;
  • Women human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists and syndicate workers; and

  • Family members of women and girls.

    Laws, bills, policies, practices, customs

• Analysis of legislation, policies and practices concerning the criminal justice system that directly or indirectly discriminate on the basis of gender, impacting the right to life (e.g. a gendered analysis of the Islamic Penal Code).

• Laws, bills, policies, practices, customs concerning economic, social and cultural rights impacting women and girls (e.g. health, education, employment, marriage and family laws, property and inheritance).

  Positive developments

• Any recent (2020-2024) laws, bills, policies, and initiatives that have improved, or aim to improve, the human rights protection of women and girls, especially the right to life.

  Suggested recommendations for:

• The Islamic Republic of Iran; member States, civil society and media, and the UN.

Please provide information concerning any of the following issues addressed below.

How inputs will be used?

Confidentiality

• Sources will remain confidential unless explicit consent is provided.
• Please specify if submission may be made public.
• Please specify protection concerns if any content is to be redacted from the public version of the submission.
• Please indicate any sensitive information requiring special handling.

Format requirements

Please share this call for inputs with your network.

• Deadline: 6 December 2024, 18:00 CEST.
• Email address: hrc-sr-iran@un.org
• Email subject line: A gender sensitive examination of the right to life for woman and girls in the Islamic Republic of Iran
• Word limit: Please limit contributions to a maximum of 3,000 words and, if necessary, provide links to relevant documents or attach annexes.
• Accepted file formats: Word or PDF.
• Accepted languages: English