Statement Submitted By: Miss Monireh Sulemani From Balochistan Peoples Party At: Fourth Session Of The Forum On Minority Issues , 28 30 November 2011, United Nations, Geneva

External barriers for the empowerment of Baloch people are; the policies and practices based on the Iranian state's constitution.

Statement submitted by:

Miss Monireh Sulemani from Balochistan peoples party

At:

Fourth Session of the Forum on Minority Issues , 28-30 November 2011, United Nations, Geneva

The right of access to education for Baloch women is limited by the Iranian regimes' laws, policies and practices. Baloch women's native language is prohibited in public addressing, official places and education. Baloch girls start school in a non native language as all schooling is conducted in Farsi. This is not specific for only Baloch children but also applies to Kurdish, Ahwazi, Turkomen and Azeri children, as 70 percent of the Iranian population are educated in a language that is not their mother tongue. As a result Baloch population suffers from high illiteracy level, and Balochistan is the poorest and least developed region in whole Iran.

Baloch women are suffering from the institutionalised discriminatory laws through officials' practice of GOZINESH, which is an ideological filtering procedure for state officials and employees. Hence, practice of GOZINESH is a process that is used as a tool to exclude non-shias, ethnicities and women from political, social and economic arenas.
Students seeking higher education are also subjected to this practice. Those who do attain higher education subjected to GOZINESH become unemployed and have no instruments to improve their lives. Facing limited opportunities, especially educational and economic, are part of Baloch women's daily life.

External barriers for the empowerment of Baloch people are; the policies and practices based on the Iranian state's constitution. According to article 115 of the Iranian constitution, Baloch women cannot stand for presidency and any other high ranking posts because of their gender, ethnicity and religion.

The language barriers create hinders in access to justice for the Baloch women and leave them powerless to what they are going be punished for. For example a Baloch woman under trial cannot defend herself against the charges in a court where only Persian language is used and they are not given the right of access to an interpreter.

Internal barriers such as patriarchal structures which limit women's freedom cannot be challenged, as the Iranian legal system does not provide protection to ethnic women، there is no encouragement of seeking support from the state. There are no forums for minority women to bring forth their grievances.

The Iranian current centralized political and social structure of the state which is built on selectivity and discrimination, does not pave the way for Baloch female empowerment and violates Baloch people's human rights in general and Baloch women' in specific. The system needs to change from a centralized selective to a federal democratic system, where ethnic groups' given greater autonomy for national sovereignty to decide their fate and women should enjoy equal rights with men.

I will end my statement with the highlighted words of a young Baloch female blogger
"how can a society flourish when half of it is being excluded in all areas of life",
The belief of equal rights and opportunities and the campaign of women, ethnicities and religious minorities, have made them the daily victims of the state that is supposed to protect them.