There is some evidence to indicate that it’s not just men who physically abuse the opposite sex. In the first seven months of the previous year that ended in March, nearly 1,350 men filed domestic abuse complaints against their wives. However, the rate of violence against women is still far higher than against men. “According to UNICEF, marriage before the legal age is another form of violence against women,” Khabaronline quoted Shirin Ahmadnia, deputy head of Social Harm Prevention Office at the State Welfare Organization as saying. Official figures say that 17% of Iranian girls are married before the age of 18,” she said on the sidelines of the ‘Getting Married before Age 18’ conference held on Saturday by the Society of Students against Poverty (Imam Ali’s Popular Students Relief Society) in Tehran. Life-threatening pregnancies, illiteracy and financial dependency are the main problems the young girls face.
