It is heartbreaking when we think about the abject and inhuman treatment that the Ahwazi Arab women receive on a daily basis. They suffer double persecution by the Iranian regime due to their ethnicity and gender. This happens in every single aspect of their lives, in areas such as education, health, politics and social life. While Ahwazi Arab men are second-class citizens, Ahwazi women are regarded as third class. Illiteracy among Ahwazi Arab women is around 80 percent, compared to around 50 percent for Ahwazi men and 27% for Iran as a whole. Ahwazi women suffer from health problems due to lack of adequate health facilities. As a result, Ahwazi women suffer from gynecological problems and have a high incidence of infertility, stillbirths and birth deformities.Ahwazi Arab women are also subjected to state terrorism. In the recent years, the wives of Ahwazi political and cultural activists have been arrested and imprisoned, along with their small children, in order to put pressure on their husbands to confess to crimes they did not commit.
Women and children are often being held as hostages by the Iranian regime and often kept in detention centers for months without charge. Some Ahwazi women, who were pregnant, miscarried or were forced to give birth in prison without adequate medical assistance and in unsanitary conditions. An example is Fahima Ismail Badawi who gave birth to her daughter Salma in prison. She was held in custody as punishment for refusing to denounce her husband Ali Matouri Zadeh. She refused to do so and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence following a secretive trial by Branch 3 of Ahwaz Revolutionary Court. Her husband was tortured and forced to confess that he was a British secret agent involved in terrorist attacks. Later he was executed.
As the Ahwazi Arab women demand for their rights and stand against this violation, the Iranian dictator regime perceives them as threats against the security of the regime.
In fact, it is a common policy of the Iranian regime to accuse the Ahwazi men and women of being a national threat against the integrity of the country as a last step to liquidate the Ahwazi people or to at least deprive them of basic social and political rights. In the case of women: they can be arrested, their licenses, properties and belongings can be confiscated, their rights to get an education can be taken away, they can lose their jobs, and there is no more chances to work in the future. All of these rights were taken away and the Ahwazi women do not have control over their lives anymore