Position Paper

Committee: General Assembly Third Committee (SOCHUM)

Country: Iran
Topic: Violence Against Women

The United Nations defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based
violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or
suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of
liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life." In 2013, the WHO conducted a
worldwide analysis, in which they discovered the every 1 in 3 women have through some
kind of sexual violence. Violence like this could lead to homicide or suicide, countless
diseases and anxiety disorders. Children growing in a family which has been subject of
violence may also suffer and could be subject of violent events themselves. This can also
jolt a cycle of violence.

This issue is a major problem in Iran as well, although the Rouhani administration
had approved a bill that could have criminalized gender-based violence, which was
sent to the judiciary for review and two years later the legislation was cleared after being
heavily amended and weakened. In a five-year economic development plan in March
2005, the Iranian government also issued a document called Iran’s 20-Year Economic
Perspective, outlining a road map for the country’s economic, political, social and
cultural developments during the next two decades. Not only does this document
promises that by 2025, Iran would be a fully advanced country but it also introduces
many newer and safer opportunities for women, in an attempt to give them freedom, a
chance to thrive and to provide for themselves and their children.

Advancing in this issue is of utmost importance and extremely critical to ensure

the safety of the women of this world. This committee should focus on the hotspots of
violence against women, countries like India, Yemen and Iraq. Every person who is
religious must know, that their religions forbid any harm to women. Although these
religions are different, they agree that no harm should be put upon women. This is why it
is crucial that countries band together to combat violence against women, so that we
together can create better and a peaceful world, which is safe for every single gender,
minority, and race to live in.
Let me tell the members of this committee what happens when we criminalize abortion, it
doesn’t stop women from needing one. That’s why attempts to ban or restrict abortions do
nothing to reduce the number of abortions, it only forces people to seek out unsafe abortions. In
contrast to a legal abortion that is carried out by a trained medical provider, unsafe abortions can
have fatal consequences. So much that according to the WHO unsafe abortions are the third leading
cause of maternal deaths worldwide and lead to an additional five million largely preventable
disabilities
Deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions are preventable. Yet such deaths are common in
countries where access to safe abortion is limited or prohibited entirely, as the majority of women
and girls who need an abortion because of an unwanted pregnancy are not able to legally access
one. This is an extremely important reason why legalizing abortionds are necessary and should be
legal in every single country. Another important reason why abortion should be legal is that what if a
mother just wants to protect her child from an abusive man or she has been abandoned and cant
take care of a child, she just wants to genuinely protect her children