Iran to disqualify female teachers 'with too much facial hair'

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Iran on Wednesday said it refuses to hire teachers who suffer illness, have strong accents, or smoke cigarettes or pipes.

The Iranian Ministry of Education published an extensive list of illnesses that would disqualify applicants from being hired as teachers, as cited in the semi-governmental Fars news agency.

Among the list are common illnesses such as kidney stones, poor eyesight, or having had bladder surgery.

The diseases that would disqualify women include having period disorders, too much facial hair, infertility, or breast cancer.

Discrimination against women in the Iranian labor industry is shaped in part by political ideology.

However, many discriminatory laws can be found in Iran’s 1936 civil code.

After the Islamic Republic of Iran came to power in 1979, the authorities rolled back the progress made by legislation enacted in 1976 promoting gender equality, particularly in family law.

The new government returned to earlier legal provisions while also enforcing a dress code as a prerequisite for appearing in public.

In the past three decades, authorities have punished women’s rights activists for their efforts to promote gender equality in law and practice, including with imprisonment.

The government’s prosecution of prominent activists trying to change discriminatory laws illustrates that the battle for women’s social and economic freedoms cannot be disentangled from the broader struggle for political and civic rights in Iran.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany