Last month, the captain of the Iranian women's football team, Niloofar Ardalan, was banned from traveling to the Asian Football Federation Women's Futsal Championship because her husband refused to let her leave the country.
Iranian marriage contracts allow husbands to determine aspects of their wives' lives, such as whether they can travel abroad, where they work, and where they live.
In response to this, women's rights page My Stealthy Freedom posted a message challenging men to publicly return their wives' right to travel freely.
Iranian men following MySteathyFreedom page can also contribute to our ongoing campaign. You can simply film yourselves or send your photos in which you state that you support your wife's right to travel freely without necessarily needing your consent. So, now, it is men's turn. We would like you to say the following: "I, as a man, will restore my wife's right to travel back to her." How many of you men out there are ready to join this campaign and to encourage others to join in so that we can challenge the backward and shameful laws we have in place?
Creator of the page Masih Alinejad has been curating photos sent to her and others posted with the hashtag #ItsMensTurn.
Present-day laws in Iran stipulate that a woman needs the permission of her male guardian to travel abroad. Hereby, with this picture, I support the idea of restoring my wife's right to travel abroad freely without my consent. I hope that other men will follow suit.
Some men have even used the campaign to openly restore all other rights to their wives.
Dowry is like a prisoner's statement. Under Iran's current laws, woman is a prisoner and an asset who can only get out of an ill-fated marriage through her dowry.But not all women have a dowry, nor do all women get married, and most women don't ever demand their dowry through legal channels. But the rights of ALL women are violated: All women, even a 6-year-old girl, have to wear the compulsory hijab. The value of all women's lives is half of men's, even those women who work and contribute to living expenses. All women inherit half of men, even a woman whose husband is sick and can't work. Or a woman who has never married and has to financially provide for herself, she would inherit half as much as her brother, even if he is an addict who would spend all of his inheritance on drugs, or even if the brother is single and has to provide only for himself.