RELIGIOUS LAW VERSUS SOCIAL REALITY
Number 60 ● 13 October 2013
RELIGIOUS LAW VERSUS SOCIAL REALITY: WILL IRAN APPROVE BY LAW MARRIAGE BETWEEN PARENTS AND THEIR ADOPTED CHILDREN?
Raz Zimmt*
A proposed legislation permitting parents to marry their adopted children has stirred up a frenzied public debate in Iran in recent weeks. The controversial proposed legislation was recently approved by the Majlis and has been referred to the Guardian Council, which has the authority to invalidate laws that are not consistent with the Islamic religious law(Sharia) or the Iranian Constitution. According to article 27 of the proposal, men would be permitted to marry their adopted daughters as soon as they reach age 13, while women would be permitted to marry their adopted sons when they reach 15.
Article 27 is one of the amendments to the Protecting Unprotected Children Act, which was ratified in 1974 to regulate Iran's adoption policy. While setting forth legal framework for childless couples to adopt children, the initial law did not relate to the possibility of adopters marrying their adoptees (Irandokht, September 2013). During the term of the 8th Majlis (2005-2009), the government submitted a proposal designed to expand its adoption policy, including a provision permitting parents to marry their adopted children conditional on court approval and an expert opinion from the State Welfare Organization. The Majlis previously passed a draft prohibiting such marriages, but the Guardian Council ruled against the provision on the grounds that it violated the Sharia. Members of the Iranian Majlis recently completed their legislative review of the objections raised by the Guardian Council. The final draft law was approved last month, including article 27 which permits adopter-adoptee marriage pending court approval and an expert opinion that such a union is consistent with the well being of the adopted child.
Advocates claim that it is impossible to forbid marriage of parents with their adopted children because according to Islamic law they are not “unlawful” (naharam). In fact, the permission to marry is intended to provide a solution for certain moral difficulties such as the unlawfulness of an adult adoptee to be present alone in a room with his or her adopting parent of the opposite sex.
Conversely, opponents claim that article 27 should be omitted from the proposed law for the sake of the children's welfare and the greater good. In recent weeks, human rights activists, especially women’s and children’s rights advocates, have mounted a public campaign against the final approval of this amendment. They stress that even if the civil law cannot be invalidated on the basis of Islamic law, there are several reasons that its approval should be blocked. First, the law could potentially increase sexual abuse of children, particularly of girls. They fear that men will take advantage of the situation, and sexually abuse their prepubescent adoptive daughters in the knowledge that they will be able to marry them in the future. Second, the law has the potential to encourage early marriage of both boys and girls. Third, the law will be harmful to the institution of adoption. Married women might abstain from adopting girls for fear their husbands would marry them in the future. Fourth, it could further encourage polygamy, which is detrimental to the rights of women. Moreover, the law could create absurd situations in which, for example, an adopted daughter would suddenly become her siblings’ stepmother.
Several nongovernmental associations of women and children rights in Iran have approached the authorities to block the law as well. Touran Vali-Morad, secretary of the Islamic Women’s Association, sent an open letter to Vice President for Legal Affairs Elham Aminzadeh asking her to intervene in the legislative procedure. Vali-Morad listed the possible serious consequences of the proposal and noted that it contradicts both the International Human Rights Treaty and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (ISNA, 28 September 2013). The Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child directly approached the Guardian Council asking its members to impede the proposed law. The Association also warned about the potential harmful consequences and even claimed that it is inconsistent with the spirit of Islam. Council members were called to employ religious legal principles to protect the interests of adopted children and prevent future social damage (Rah-e Sabz, 1 October 2013).
Human rights activist, attorney Mehrangiz Kar, vigorously criticized the proposed law as “inhumane” and called for public action against an act that might lead to sexual abuse of prepubescent girls. She also called President Rouhani to use his influence in the Majlis and in the Guardian Council to block its final approval, and further called on Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i to use his authority to invalidate the law, as he has done several times in the past in cases of public controversy (Rah-e Digar, 29 September 2013).
Reservations were also raised by several Iranian clerics. In an interview with ISNA, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Eshkevari stated that although Sharia law sanctions matrimonial unions between parents and their adopted children, such marriages are inconsistent with contemporary social realities, and could potentially lead to social corruption. Therefore, they should be forbidden (ISNA, 1 October 2013).
Following the recent political change in Iran, several members of Rouhnai's new government have also voiced their objections to the law. Vice President for Women and the Family, Maryam Mojtahedzadeh, recently called on members of Majlis to reconsider their support. She claimed that even if the Sharia permits such unions, the law is morally invalid because it would lead to emotional problems among adopted children, and would allow stepparents to take advantage of a minor under their legal custody (Asr-e Iran, 30 september 2013).
The public discourse regarding the proposed law repeatedly points to the tension existing in the Islamic Republic between the need to base legislation on the principles of Islamic law and the desire to consider public criticism regarding human and civil rights. This tension could possibly reach a climax if the proposed law is referred to the Expediency Discernment Council, which is authorized to make the final decision if the Majlis and Guardian Council cannot come to an agreement. If the Expediency Discernment Council decides against article 27, it will further support the view that the Iranian regime tends to prefer the national interest over Islamic legal considerations. This preference was already evident in the precedent-setting decision by the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who decided, shortly before his death, that the government even has the right to destroy a mosque or postpone fulfillment of one of Islam’s basic commandments if required by the national interest.
The approval of this controversial law by the Majlis also highlights the difficulties confronted by the Iranian regime when facing the need to overcome Islamic legal barriers during legislative processes. Another example of this complexity is evident in Iran’s policy regarding stoning, which is characterized by limited consideration of criticism made by domestic and international human rights organizations concerning the law allowing stoning for adultery alongside avoiding any change in this law (Zman Iran 19, 1 August 2010)■
*Raz Zimmt (PhD) is a research fellow at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and editor of the publication Spotlight on Iran published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
T h e A l l i a n c e C e n t e r f o r I r a n i a n S t u d i e s ( A C I S )
Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 61390, Tel Aviv P.O.B. 39040, Israel
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Iran Pulse No. 59 ● 17 July 2013
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