Iran

Since 2022, enforcement of morality laws has intensified, with women and girls arrested for allegedly violating hijab requirements, singing, or appearing on social media. Members of religious and ethnic minority groups—such as the Baha’i—are at particularly heightened risk of persecution and detention. In December 2024, Iran’s government adopted the Law on Protecting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab, which instated lengthy prison terms and even death sentences for improper hijab. Although its implementation was postponed, authorities have continued to increase surveillance, including through a state-backed app that deputizes the public to report on women they think are violating morality restrictions. Women continue to experience violence both interpersonally and amidst regional armed conflict. Femicide increased by 16 percent in 2024 alongside repression, impunity for gender-based violence, and mounting stress and trauma. Despite these challenges, women continue to lead social movements, report on rights abuses as researchers and journalists, and advocate for women’s and human rights. 

Any resumption of conflict—particularly with Israel or the US—not only directly threatens the lives of women and girls, but also risks obscuring worsening gender-based repression in Iran. Iranians involved with Woman, Life, Freedom may now be potentially endangered further after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly invoked the movement when calling for regime change during the June 2025 conflict. Four imprisoned women’s activists issued a letter cautioning against dependence on foreign powers for regime change and urging that political transformation must come from Iranians, while analysts have cautioned that external pressure may push Iranian leadership to harden its stances on rights. Iranian women—alongside Afghans—continue to push for the recognition of gender apartheid in the forthcoming UN treaty on crimes against humanity. This treaty, set for its next debate in October 2025, could unlock new legal and moral tools to pursue justice for women’s systematic repression.

University students have resumed demonstrations more than six weeks after the government violently suppressed a mass anti-regime uprising. Protests have spread to universities in Tehran and in the city of Mashhad, signaling renewed mobilization despite heightened repression. Women and girls have been on the frontlines of recent protests and were some of the first confirmed to have been killed by state authorities; yet, there is concern that renewed calls for regime-change are sidelining the demands of women protestors and the centrality of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The latest demonstrations are occurring alongside US-Iran nuclear talks and signals from the US of possible military action, further complicating the political and security landscape and risking further escalation.

State security forces killed, injured, and arrested thousands during its suppression of anti-regime protests in January 2026. While the exact toll remains unknown, at least 7,000 deaths and 53,000 arrests—including of female civilians—have been confirmed by rights monitors, and doctors in Iran suggest the true number of deaths is much higher. Authorities have sentenced dozens of protesters to execution, with at least two 17-year old children at risk of receiving the death penalty. Those detained—including at least one teenager—have also reported being sexually assaulted by members of the security forces while imprisoned.

Iranian authorities imposed a weeks-long strict internet blackout in response to the protests, inhibiting internal communication and preventing human rights reporting and data collection. Although spotty access has been restored, outside monitors flag that Iran may be moving towards adopting an intranet, which would effectively cut off internal access to the worldwide internet. Doing so would block global awareness and activism related to government repression—including of women’s rights—and violence, cut women off from a vital channel for protest and support, and make it harder for families to locate and identify victims of state brutality. Many women also rely on the internet for their livelihoods due to gendered barriers to formal employment, meaning digital precarity could compound financial instability.

Iran continues to face a once-in-a-century drought, with many cities approaching “day zero” after which water supply systems will cease to work. Water shortages exacerbate economic strain and anti-regime sentiment, with water stress, protests, and political violence often concentrated in the same areas. The unfolding water crisis—including cuts, worsening water quality, and declining pressure—undermines women and girls’ access to potable water for drinking, cooking, and hygiene while exacerbating socioeconomic stressors which drive gender-based violence and early marriage. Conservative leaders have attributed the drought to the loosening of social restrictions—a link which could be exploited to reinvigorate enforcement of morality laws targeting women. Water shortages are further exacerbated by damage to water infrastructure during the 12-day war with Israel in 2025.

The UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate for the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran for one year and for the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran for two years. The Fact-Finding Mission has played a visible role in monitoring and condemning human rights abuses and repression targeting women and girls.

Iranian women’s leadership—both at home and in the diaspora—raises hopes for possible regime change and opportunities for women’s political participation. Although the Iranian government has maintained its grip on power, this optimism brings visibility to women’s continued influence in advocating for a free Iran and advancing the principles set out by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.