The Rights of the Child in Iran

On 3 January 2010, Iran established the National Body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (NBCRC) under the Ministry of Justice.[7] The NBCRC is responsible for supervising, organizing, and coordinating all issues related to children in Iran, at a national level through ministries and NGOs, and at a local level through the establishment of local offices managed by provincial governors. The NBCRC has established four specialized working groups to assist it in fulfilling its mandates: the Monitoring and Controlling Group, the Legal and Judicial Working Group, the Training and Information Working Group, and the Protection and Coordination Working Group.[8]

While its establishment was considered a positive step, the effectiveness of the NBCRC has been called into question by outside groups.[9] In particular, its lack of independence and its limited powers to influence government policy outside of an advisory capacity has been raised. There is currently no National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in Iran with the power to consider individual complaints and carry out investigations on behalf of children.[9]

With regard to the definition of "child", the tendency within international law is that of setting the threshold between childhood and adulthood at eighteen years-old. For instance, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has claimed that individuals should not be subject to imprisonment under the age of 18 [20] and should not be actively participating in conflicts under the age of 15.[21] The age of criminal responsibility is directly connected to the age of majority. On 10 February 2012, Iran's parliament changed the controversial law of executing juveniles. In the new law, the age of 18 (solar year) would be considered the minimum age for adulthood and offenders under this age will be sentenced under a separate law.[22][23]

Corporal punishment of children is not allowed in day care centres according to the article 8 (23) of the Amended Regulations for Establishment, Management and Dissolution of All Forms of Day Care Centres (2008). The same law applies to juvenile correction centres. In fact, according to the Executive Regulations of the Prisons Organisation, Correction and Security Measures (2005), “Aggressive behaviour, verbal abuse of the accused and convicts or administering harsh and insulting disciplinary measures are forbidden in any manner in institutions and prisons”.[24]

According to the Iranian Constitution, “all forms of torture for the purpose of extracting confession or acquiring information are forbidden”,[25] which conforms to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[26] However, there have been recent reports of torture and mistreatment by juvenile offenders, who were forced to confess by means of physical coercion. One of the latest cases was reported by Alireza Tajiki, who was arrested at the age of fifteen and convicted after confessing under torture the rape and the murder of a friend, crimes that he consistently withdrew in court.[27][28]

Flogging as criminal punishment is a practice still in use in the Justice system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to the law stating the age of criminal responsibility, girls above nine and boys above fifteen years-old are judged and punished according to the Iranian Penal Code, which also implies corporal punishment for crimes concerning sex, false accusation, use of alcohol, and caused injury.[29] Therefore, girls above nine years-old and boys above fifteen years-old can be subject to flogging.[30] However, if it is recognized that the offenders “do not realize the nature of the crime committed or its prohibition, or if there is uncertainty about their full mental development”, corporal punishment cannot be applied and the offender will either be detained or charged with a fine.[31] However, for the Article 91 to be taken into consideration and be applied, it is required that the juvenile offender themselves claims the right to a retrial allowed by the mentioned article. The offenders below eighteen and their families are often unaware of this possibility and not being able to afford a lawyer who can inform them about their rights, very few of them apply for retrial.[32]

According to the Iranian Civil Code, “A child must obey its parents and must respect them regardless of their age” [33] and in case of disobedience or for educational purposes, Iranian law allows corporal punishment in the home as long as the perpetrator is the guardian of the child. According to the Iranian Civil Code, “Parents are entitled to punish their children but they must not abuse this right by punishing their children beyond the limits of correction”.[34] Furthermore, the Islamic Penal Code states that “The acts committed by parents and legal guardians of minors and insane people in order to chastise or protect them provided that such actions are exercised within the customary limits and religious limits for chastisement and protection”.[35]

Death penalty is currently in use in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the percentage of executions has increased by 300% from 2008 to 2015.[36] Iran also detains the worldly record for the country executing the biggest number of juvenile offenders.[37] The percentage of executions of minors substantially increased and later dropped in 2015. However, at the beginning of 2016, 160 offenders were on “death row” (waiting to be executed) in Iran for crimes that they had committed before they had turned eighteen.[38]

In 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child strongly urged Iran to end the execution of children and persons who committed a crime while under the age of 18. On 18 October 2017, a variety of United Nations human rights experts stressed that “Iran was continuing to execute juvenile offenders” [39] The UN experts deplored the continued child executions in Iran. The UN experts said, “Iran should immediately and unconditionally abolish the sentencing of children to death, and engage in a comprehensive process of commutation of all death sentences issued against children, in line with juvenile justice standards.”[40] Iran has reportedly executed at least four juvenile offenders from January to October 2017, and at least 86 more are known to be on death row at the time, although the actual figure may be higher.[41]

The reasons for which juvenile offenders were subject to death penalty have mainly been murder and rape but “enmity against God” (moharebeh), theft and crimes related to drug have also figured among the reasons for juvenile capital punishment.[42] A recent tendency regarding capital punishment in the Islamic Republic of Iran is that of detaining the offenders until they turn eighteen and only execute them at that time. However, there is no legal obligation according to which executions should be postponed until the offender has reached the age of eighteen.[43] The updated version of the Islamic Penal Code of 2013 includes that youth between fifteen and eighteen who have committed crimes punishable with ta’zir [44] will be exempt from execution. They will be instead subject to detention of various durations, or fines of various value, depending on the seriousness of the offences.[45] However, when the crime committed is categorised under hudud and qisas, offenders under the age of eighteen execution is considered legally legitimate. Even in case of hudud and qisas, when offenders under the age of eighteen are thought not to have recognized the gravity of the crime, the Article 91 of the Iranian Penal Code might be applied and the offender might be exempt from death penalty.

Hanging is the most common form of capital punishment in Iran and it is either carried out in prisons or publicly on squares.

The practice of stoning has been limited in the revised version of the Iranian Penal Code (2013). However, the new version of the Penal Code retains the use of stoning as hadd punishment.[46] The Article 225 states that “the hadd punishment for zina of a man and a woman who meet the conditions of ihsan shall be stoning to death”.[47]

In spite of the fact that the UN has condemned executions as criminal punishment in Iran and has stressed the gravity of carrying out executions publicly,[48] the perpetration of this practice in Iran has been reported. [49]

On 21 February 2019 a group of United Nations human rights experts called on Iranian regime to halt the imminent execution of Mohammad Kalhory who was 15 when he committed the crime.[50]

Article 20 of the Iranian constitution guarantees the equal protection of the law to both men and women.[51] Nevertheless, Iranian laws contain several practices which reinforce gender discrimination in the country. As noted above, the Iranian Penal and Civil Codes define a child at the age of 9 lunar years for girls, and 15 lunar years for boys.[52] This grants fewer years of child protection to girls than boys, and denies them some of the protections of the Convention.[53]

Article 907 of the Civil Code, on inheritance, also discriminates based on gender by granting male heirs twice as much as female heirs in the case of multiple children. Furthermore, Article 911 of the Civil Code states that in the case of the deceased having no surviving children, grandchildren inherit according to how much their parents would have received. Children of sons thus inherit more than children of daughters.[54]

Iranian nationality law contains principles of both jus sanguinis and jus soli. Nationality is passed through the father, meaning that children of Iranian mothers and non-Iranian fathers face difficulty in acquiring Iranian nationality.[55]

Recognizing this, in the Third Periodic Report on the CRC the Iranian government pointed out the 2006 Single Article Act on Deciding on the Nationality of Children Born as a Result of Marriage of Iranian Women and Foreign National Men, which states that children born in Iran “as a result of marriage of Iranian women to foreign national men, may, upon attaining the age of 18, apply for acquiring Iranian nationality.”[56] This would be granted providing the child has no criminal or security record, and that they revoke any non-Iranian nationality. The Iranian Majles estimated that the law would assist the approximately 120,000 children left in “citizenship limbo”.[57]

This law has been criticized for not going far enough to protect the rights of children. Many non-Iranian fathers are Afghan or Iraqi undocumented migrants or refugees.[58] Iranian law requires that an Iranian woman receives permission to marry a foreign national, and as asylum-seekers are often not legally registered, their marriages cannot be registered and as such their children cannot receive birth certificates.

The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that the government is responsible for providing all citizens with free education up to secondary school[59] The central government, through the Ministry of Education, is responsible for financing and administration of K-12 education. It supervises national examinations, monitors standards, organizes curricula and the training of teachers, produces educational materials, and upholds and develops infrastructure. Education is supervised through provincial authorities and district offices at the local level.[60]

Iran’s expenditure on education is higher than global average. According to UNESCO, 17% of government expenditure in Iran went to education, a relatively high number compared to the global average of 14.3%.[61]

Early marriage is one of the main contributors to the school dropout rate, as Iranian regulations limit access to school for married children, as they are only allowed to participate in final exams, and are not eligible to attend classes or night schools.[62]