Young Iranian women looking for work face new restrictions as the Majles (parliament) debates a bill prohibiting government departments from recruiting both single and childless married women.

One advocate of the bill – the General Population and Family Promotion Plan – is female conservative MP Fateme Aliya, who has already supported other laws restricting female participation in society.

Meanwhile senior university lecturer Elahe Koulayi condemned the bill, calling it yet one more government attempt to keep Iranian women at home. She told the ISNA news agency: “The bill does nothing to help educated women find employment. It suggests that women have nothing better to do than wander the streets. The main barrier to progress in our country is the brain drain, with many of the educated elite leaving to live and work abroad. This is a major, urgent problem and we should do something about it, instead of introducing bills such as the General Population and Family Promotion Plan, which further limit women’s contribution to solving our country’s problems.”

Shahrzad News