in poorer provinces, including Khuzestan, where rates of children deprived of education are
reportedly the highest.24
In its General Comment no.13, the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights
stipulates that “education has to be within safe physical reach, either by attendance at some
reasonably convenient geographic location (e.g. a neighborhood school) or via modern
technology (e.g. access to a “distance learning” programme)” and that education “has to be
affordable to all”.25 However, reports indicated that rural areas lacked schools, forcing
children to travel long distances. The Committee further states that “a State must protect the
accessibility of education by ensuring that third parties, including parents and employers, do
not stop girls from going to school.” 26 Yet, reports have shown that child marriage and family
decisions were amongst the main reasons behind the high school dropout rate of girls.27
Additionally, although the Iranian legal framework does not explicitly prevent married girls
from attending school,28 a court ruling may still give the right to a husband to restrict his
wife’s education if he finds it “incompatible with the interests of the family or with his or his
wife’s dignity”.29
In 2014, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs reportedly
signed a number of memorandums committing the government to, among other goals, address
girls dropout in Iran.30 The government also reportedly engaged in a number of measures
considered key in the return of almost 34,000 girls to school in 2016.31 Yet drop-out rates
among girls in rural areas remain high as of today. The Iranian National Body for the
Convention of the Rights of the Child.32 During the State’s 2016 CRC review, the Iranian
National Body for the Convention of the Rights of the Child listed the main achievements of
its established working groups, notably of its Education Workgroup which include “analysis
of the educational issues of the educationally deprived children” and of its Support and
Coordination Workgroup, including “analysis of different dimensions of supporting children
who are deprived of education.” 33 There is no readily available information that might
indicate that such analysis have been impactful in practice. In July 2020 the Ministry of
24
Minority Rights Group, https://minorityrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Rights-Denied-Violations-against-ethnicand-religious-minorities-in-Iran.pdf
25
CESCR General Comment No. 13: The Right to Education (Art. 13) https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4538838c22.pdf
26
CESCR General Comment No. 13: The Right to Education (Art. 13) https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4538838c22.pdf
27
Radio Farda, https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-school-drop-out-among-girls/28726094.html
28
Report of the U.N. Secretary General, August 2019, https://undocs.org/en/A/74/273
29
CRC/C/IRN/CO/3-4
30
Mehr News, https://en.mehrnews.com/news/104849/Girl-dropouts-to-return-to-school
31
Financial Tribune, https://financialtribune.com/articles/people/51541/gov-t-struggling-to-reduce-dropout-rates-in-schools
32
The role of the Iranian National Body for the Convention of the Rights of the Child is “to set up plans and programs to
promote the child rights and respect to their character” and has the responsibility to monitor and assess the implementation of
child rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 2 National Body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child Bylaws).
The body is headed by the Minister of Justice, who appoints most of its members and officers and includes three NGO
representatives among its 23 members (Justice for Iran, submission to the CRC, 2015,
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/IRN/INT_CRC_NGO_IRN_19746_E.pdf)
33
The Supplementary Response of the (NBCRC) regarding the Concluding Observation on the Combined third and fourth
periodic reports of the Committee on the Rights of the Child for the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2016,
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCRC%2fCOB%2fIRN%2f23
480&Lang=en
3