Women in Iran's factories face hardship, discrimination

Iranian female workers, many of whom work under dire circumstances, are often slighted and undergo hardship alongside the tough nature of their jobs. In an interview with Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), Haleh Safar-Zadeh, an activist for female workers’ rights, talked about many of the issues facing Iranian women who work in factories. She said, “The minimum wage female workers accept for work is so low that it has angered their male co-workers, who tell them these kinds of agreements may backfire on them and result in lower wages for them — the male workers — as well." She added, "In certain instances, single women are employed in factories on the condition that they commit to remaining single and/or refrain from reproduction.”

While many offices and companies, including in the public sector, have free day care centers for their personnel, rarely does a factory or industrial complex offer such facilities. Meanwhile, the government's recent policies of promoting having more children and offering incentives such as longer maternity leave is lowering numbers of women personnel, as they faced more complicated problems upon their return to the workforce. And as for governmental factories, employers and recruiters generally prefer to hire men over women on account of the conditions they have recently become obligated to follow, such as granting longer periods of paid maternity leave, establishing day care centers and allowing nursing breaks for new mothers.