Shahindokht Molaverdi, vice president for Women and Family Affairs, has recommended a bill to organize homeless women and enhance penalties for acid throwers, as part of the solution to problems women face in society.
Social challenges are the major problems encountering women in the Tehran metropolis, making them look up to the government for support.
Social vulnerability of women, particularly in modern societies, can affect the family institution, the primary unit of the society. Therefore, their problems shouldn’t be neglected, she said.
Social vulnerability is partially the product of social inequalities—those social factors that influence or shape the susceptibility of various groups to harm and that also govern their ability to respond.
Single mothers are more likely to live in poverty when they have children and have to balance earning money while raising and caring for their children. They are more likely to work part time and to miss work in order to care for their children.
Many homeless and low income women work in service industries, which offer few benefits and low wages, thus contributing greatly to their poverty.
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed to provide women heads of households with more support to protect them from possible social harm, Molaverdi said, hoping that sufficient funds would be allocated for programs under the MoU, ISNA reported.
“Organizing women’s accommodation in residential areas by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development and cooperation with the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences on social pathology research on women, are on the agenda,” she said.
Molaverdi said she had also presented plans to the Ministry of Education on empowering women and families, including providing consultation services on cultural issues, thematic dispersion maps-that can portray social, cultural, economic, sociological, or any other aspects of a city, state, region-related to social-psychological harm among female students, training and cultural programs to deepen religious beliefs and also strengthening family structures via training programs for parents with mentally disabled children in seven provinces.
Consultation
In a follow up to the MoU, family courts in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari Province organized family counseling sessions. A bill on supporting women against domestic rage and abuse was sent to the legislature, establishing an anti-human trafficking center was recommended to the president and the revision of the anti-human trafficking bill was proposed to the judicial system.
Also, determining alternative penalties for female prisoners charged with addiction and drug trafficking for less than 91 days, establishing a social support group of rehabilitated women by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, allocating sufficient funds to victims of acid attacks and organizing the homeless in Tehran were among action proposed to curb social ills.
Over 2.5 million women heads of households had been identified and many of them do not have sufficient skills or money to meet the financial needs of family members.
Additionally, other than poverty, a huge part of their problems are related to their personal and psychological makeup.
“Women, in large part, are victims of social ills,” Molaverdi said, and appealed to social workers to help address their problems.
She expressed hope that the concept of a social worker community would emerge to provide higher levels of support and services for those in need.
