Women are working under deplorable conditions in the green-house complex in Sanandaj, capital of the Iranian Kurdistan Province in the west.
The green-house complex belongs to the graduates of agriculture in Kurdistan – Sanandaj, and is affiliated with the Ministry of Agricultural Crusade.
Only women work in these green houses. Seven women work at every green house from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. where the weather is intolerably warm. Women work 12 hours a day in these green houses in the heat of 56 degrees Celsius, and receive only 37500 tomans ($2.5) as daily wage.
None of these women have insurance. The pressure and difficulty of work in the super-hot weather in these green houses have caused various illnesses for these women and a number of them have been hospitalized.
Women workers work under deplorable conditions in Iran because women are systematically discriminated against in the law, in the job market and in employment. So, they have to endure double oppression.
They have to accept just any job with any income and under any difficult circumstances in small workshops which do not have to comply with the labor law. So, those who work in these workshops do not enjoy any legal support, benefits, insurance or safety. Some experts have called the tortuous conditions for female workers as “new slavery.”
The Iranian regime, which is a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), has not adopted any of the CSW recommendations to improve women’s economic empowerment, and is moving in the opposite direction.
Instead of “eliminating structural barriers and discriminatory laws” and “creating equal economic opportunities,” the regime sanctions more discrimination against women and its legislations marginalize them even further.
As reiterated by the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “the issue of women’s employment is not among the main issues.”
