The Iranian regime’s legal system continues to entrench systemic gender-based violence and violence against women, not only through its outdated penal codes and lack of protective legislation but also through a deeply flawed judicial process.
Despite numerous reports and pleas from women’s rights activists, survivors of domestic violence face near-insurmountable challenges in proving abuse, securing legal protection, and escaping cycles of brutality.
Recent reports by the state-run media in Iran reveal the regime’s judicial bureaucracy is not merely inefficient—it is complicit in the violence. While these reports nominally center on legal issues, a closer examination lays bare a regime that prioritizes patriarchal control over the safety and rights of women.
An Endless Bureaucratic Trap
Women who seek justice in Iran after experiencing domestic violence are caught in a dehumanizing bureaucratic loop. They are shuffled between local police stations, forensic medical centers, family courts, and state-appointed counselors. Instead of offering support, each step becomes a barrier, designed not to resolve but to exhaust.
While the regime’s laws nominally allow women to file complaints, there is no effective structure to protect them or hold perpetrators accountable.
The result? Victims are left to carry the full burden of proof.
In a country where domestic violence typically occurs behind closed doors and witnesses are often family members unwilling or too afraid to testify, women face an almost impossible task. The lack of a standalone legal definition for domestic violence only deepens the crisis, as prosecutors must force these cases into general criminal categories that are ill-suited for the realities of domestic abuse.
The Illusion of Forensic Evidence
Forensic medical reports are often cited by the regime as evidence that victims can use to seek justice. However, these reports—bruises, broken bones, and other visible injuries—rarely translate into convictions.
Accused men can easily deny responsibility, claiming the woman fell, self-harmed, or was involved in an accident. The burden then shifts back to the victim, who must prove that the injuries were inflicted by the accused. In the Iranian regime’s legal system, where victim-blaming is common and police often lack the will to conduct thorough investigations, such proof is virtually impossible to provide.
Further compounding the issue is the reluctance of neighbors to testify. In many parts of Iran, particularly in more conservative and rural communities, intervening in a family’s “private matters” is frowned upon. Fears of retaliation, cultural stigma, and lack of trust in the legal system ensure silence. And in the rare cases where witnesses do come forward, the Iranian regime offers no real protection, leaving them vulnerable to threats or violence.
Legal Loopholes and Police Inaction
Iranian law does, on paper, provide for police intervention in cases of domestic violence. Article 45 of the Criminal Procedure Code specifies that if a resident calls law enforcement to report ongoing violence, the situation should be treated as a “manifest crime.” This grants the authority to enter a home and arrest the suspect without a court order.
In practice, however, this legal provision is widely ignored. Police officers frequently refuse to enter a residence without a judge’s warrant, despite the law. When they do respond, they rarely document what they witness.
Instead of detailed incident reports—including visible injuries, signs of struggle, or weapons used—officers merely note that the woman claimed to have been abused. This failure to record critical evidence effectively erases violence and empowers the abuser.
A System That Empowers Abusers
The Iranian regime’s court system is designed not to protect women, but to wear them down. Survivors who enter the legal process are subjected to months, sometimes years, of back-and-forth with no resolution.
This exhausting process often ends with victims abandoning their complaints entirely. The accused, watching this unfold, learn a chilling lesson: they can abuse with impunity. With little fear of legal consequences, violent men are emboldened, and the cycle of gender-based violence deepens.
Murder as the Final Chapter in Failed Complaints
The ultimate cost of this institutional failure is paid in women’s lives. Since January 2025, dozens of women across Iran have been murdered by male relatives—fathers, brothers, and husbands. Each case is a grim reminder that many of these victims had either tried and failed to seek help or had been too terrified of the consequences to even begin the process. (Rokna, May 19, 2025)
The NCRI Women’s Committee has compiled data on the murder of at least 160 women in 2024 and at least 105 women in 2023 by their male relatives.
Many women who are eventually killed never filed official complaints—not because they didn’t want to, but because they feared retaliation. The Iranian regime provides no post-complaint protections. No shelter, no monitoring of the abusers, and no follow-up by authorities.
If a woman survives the complaint process, she is usually sent right back to the household where the violence originated. There, she must face a now-angrier abuser, fully aware that the system will not intervene.
Conclusion
The Iranian regime’s refusal to enact meaningful laws or enforce existing ones leaves women defenseless against violence that is not only tolerated but structurally enabled.
The clerical regime has created a legal labyrinth in which victims are lost, abusers are protected, and society is taught that a woman’s life is expendable.
Until the regime itself is dismantled and replaced with a system that centers human rights, especially women’s rights, nothing will change. No reforms, no policy tweaks, and no new ministerial appointments will protect women. Violence is not a side effect of the regime. It is a feature of it.
