Rayehe Mozafarian- Samire Hanaei

Report Of Stop Early Marriage In Iran

We sit together in the hall waiting for our turn. As always in the ultrasound room, I and more clients are women. Only a few men are watching us with impatience. She is sitting next to me pushing the armrest. The pain was easily observable in his face. Her hand vessels turn out with anger every time. She pains. The hot weather rushes as always ahead. The space of hall is shut and discomfort. I look at her number. 58! To reach her turn, the doctor should see 8 persons others. Although I have no experience on this issue but I start the conversation in order to get rid of the dullness of the clockwise.

She has only 23 years old. She got married at age 16. Now she has three children and her eldest son goes to school next year. Early marriage in the rural district of Kahurestan (one of the nearby villages of Bandar Abbas) is not an unusual story. Her husband works in Dubai. He works in the shop of one of the intimate persons and sells sacks and glues and whatever the dhows want to sell. He rarely comes to Iran, just a few months in a year. In any her childbirth, he was not on her side. Last child was 8 months when her father saw her. She also works in the land of her husband’s father. They cultivate the summer crops and tomato.

My turn comes. When I came back she was not and her chair was empty. Perhaps she did not tolerate and take refuge elsewhere. As soon as said Hormozgan women, we unconsciously remember the image of colorful veils and port nice pants and costly. We remember the women covering veils with beautiful long and short dresses. Hanna tattoos on their hands and the brown cute faces of them when passing under the palm trees have been observed in films mostly.

Our mental image about Hormozgan women only is limited to their covers and color of skins; the local coverage that can be particularly attributed to Hormozgan women. But really are Hormozgan women hidden their real faces under their veils and colorful covers?

In 2015 in Hormozgan Province, 42 women less than 15 gave birth to a baby. From these, 18 cases were in cities and 24 cases were in villages. Also, 2975 women between the ages of 15 to 19 years living in this area gave birth to their children in this province. As a whole, Hormozgan is the province which the highest rates of child marriage occur in.

The table below lists the marriage of girls at different ages. The figures in this table are remarkable according to statistics of the marriage registration offices and national organization of civil registration. There have been recorded 9 marriages in girls less than 10, 595 marriages in girls between 10 to 14 years was recorded in just one year. While this province is one of areas that have a lot of unregistered marriages or delayed registered marriages.

Table 1: The number of registered marriages due to the ages of women at the time of marriage

One hypothesis has been always discussed:

Is early marriage one of the reasons of maternal and infant mortality?

Partly the answer to this question is yes because for having a healthy baby, the mother should have a healthy capable efficient body. Early marriage and subsequent early pregnancies cause the mothers’ body have no growth opportunities and the full development and leading to compact and short fetus. So there is no time for the evolution and productivity in order that the children do not have the process of proper development of full maturity.

The fact is that we have heard from the management of Hormozgan women less.

In most regions of Hormozgan Province, the men work in countries neighboring Persian Gulf, because of its proximity and the effective fields for economic activities and even they force to be far away from their families over many years. During this time, young women gained the responsibility of life very soon and are married at early ages due to traditional marriages and have children should manage the families in all aspects and the economical management of families, savings, responsibility for children training and animal husbandry in the absence of the husband without proper training in this field

In fact, women, as the sole administrator in their families, have the dual role.