Iran’s women’s movement, civil society come under ‘maximum pressure’
Leila Alikarami, June 18
As tensions between Iran and the United States reached dangerous levels in recent weeks, Iranian human rights activists warned about the dire ramifications of sanctions and other pressures for women and the women’s rights movement in Iran.
The US policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran has been composed of ever-expanding sets of sanctions imposed in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal last year. The pressure has been intensified by a looming threat of imminent war. Not surprisingly, maximum pressure is having a big impact in Iran — but perhaps not the impact the United States claims to seek.
The worsening implications of US sanctions are reaching alarming levels, with women and the women’s rights movement in Iran among the collateral damage.
Indeed, Iranian women complain about the spiraling prices of imported contact lenses, cancer and diabetes drugs and even sanitary pads and tampons. They have had to resort to food rationing and substitution strategies to stretch a weak rial and feed their families as the reimposition of US extraterritorial sanctions batters the Iranian economy.
Washington maintains that sanctions do not apply to medicines and food. While technically true, in reality ordinary Iranians are seeing shortages of drugs, medical supplies and other essential goods as banking channels have been shut down and Iran faces limited access to foreign currency.
One 28-year-old mother from western Kermanshah province told Al-Monitor about her newborn baby, who was diagnosed with acid reflux in April. The doctor prescribed a Zantac (ranitidine) syrup. “We searched all the pharmacies in my hometown and then I called my friends in Tehran but the syrup was nowhere to be found,” said Nasrin, who asked that her last name not be used. Finally, she ordered the syrup, which is produced by British multinational GlaxoSmithKline, from Iraqi Kurdistan through family acquaintances. “We paid 120,000 tomans [$28.50] for the syrup, while the same syrup was available in the pharmacies in Iran for just 25,000 tomans [$5.95] before the [reimposition of US] sanctions.”
Read the piece on Al-monitor website
