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 TEHRAN,
Oct 31 (AFP) - Two thirds of Iranian women have suffered domestic violence
and a quarter are unhappy with their gender, a
social welfare official said Monday.
Sociologist Jaleh Shaditalab
of Iran's
National Welfare Organisation said most of the
victims were in forced marriages and that abuses also included mental
torment, humiliation and being prevented from working.
She said the figures were drawn from a national survey of the problem.
In February 2005 the UN's top official on women's rights, Yakin Erturk, chastised Iran over what she said were
abuses and discrimination built in to the Islamic republic's laws.
Iran's
laws "do not provide protection for victims of domestic violence and
make it difficult to escape violence through divorce", she said, adding
that suffering wives also faced "time-consuming judicial procedures and stigmatisation".
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