It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
UCF research to help inform statewide efforts to stop domestic violence and improve care for survivors
Interdisciplinary researchers from UCF’s Violence Against Women faculty cluster are evaluating the state’s domestic violence resources to help make a safer Florida
Dr. Karina Villalba specializes in researching substance use and physical trauma. She lent her expertise with Spanish-speaking communities to this project.
Florida is turning to UCF experts to find better ways to prevent domestic violence and give survivors a stronger voice in the services they need.
Through a $257,384 two-year grant from the Florida Partnership to End Domestic Violence, faculty from UCF’s Violence Against Women research cluster are conducting a statewide domestic violence needs assessment. Their findings will help policymakers and local agencies develop better strategies to fund and support domestic violence prevention programs that empower survivors.
“The collective goal of our work is to give people working in these programs and people using these services a voice,” said Dr. Bethany Backes, associate professor of social work at UCF’s College of Health Professions and Sciences, who leads the Violence Against Women cluster and is the project’s principal investigator. “Having research that practitioners can understand and interpret in a way that’s helpful is important to us. What we’re creating now is hopefully something that can be used for years to come.”
The World’s Women
Violence against women is a global issue. According to UN Women, nearly one in three women worldwide have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life. In 2024, around 50,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members.
UCF’s faculty cluster — working across the disciplines of education, social work, criminal justice, sociology and medicine — was created a decade ago to help change these outcomes.
“We know how complex this social problem is,” said Dr. Kim Anderson, a professor of social work and cluster member. “We’re looking at criminal justice, sociology, health, and so much more that altogether could create solutions beyond any one discipline.”
Informing Florida’s Strategy
The researchers have already identified some key needs for the state to examine.
“For example, we’re seeing people facing abuse who are having to spend more on food or other necessities as they navigate shifts in funding for certain assistance programs,” Dr. Backes said. “What we’re also seeing is the effect of population booms, and how rapid growth and rapid decline in some areas affects the need for services.”
The researchers are analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Florida’s Departments of Law Enforcement and Children and Families and are surveying organizations that provide domestic violence services. They are interviewing survivors who sought services and those who didn’t to understand access to care and risk factors.
Creating opportunities where more people feel comfortable sharing their domestic violence experiences is cluster member Dr. Karina Villalba’s expertise.
“My focus is on intimate partner violence, specifically within the Hispanic community,” said Dr. Villalba, an assistant professor in the UCF College of Medicine’s Population Health Sciences Division. “There are certain beliefs, like the concept of ‘machismo’, that may give an avenue for some men to pursue this kind of violence. Because it can be part of the cultural acceptance, it might not even be seen as violence by the survivors.”
She hopes efforts to prevent domestic violence in the U.S. will have impact globally.
“You’re seeing a ripple effect in countries in Latin America where people are becoming more aware,” Dr. Villalba said. “It helps us keep pushing forward with our work so we cannot just be a beacon here in Florida and the United States, but to show the world what we can do.”
Keys to Preventing Violence
Preventing domestic violence means identifying early warning signs and behaviors and providing services to lower the risk of continuing violence, Dr. Backes said.
Domestic violence is “not always physical and it’s not just seeing someone with a black eye,” she said. “Physical violence can happen after there’s been psychological abuse such as coercion, controlling, isolation or stalking.”
Cluster member Dr. Alison Cares, associate professor of sociology at UCF’s College of Sciences, says preventing domestic abuse involves changing misconceptions.
“There’s this expectation of how abusers or survivors look. It’s easy to think the people doing this abuse look like monsters,” she said. “But the reality is these are people we know. They can be friends or family members or people we work with.”
The researchers said they are encouraged by the resilience of the survivors and service providers they have met. “We see incredible bravery of people who talk to a support person,” Dr. Anderson said. “We’re hoping that information we get from this assessment can elevate the voices of staff and survivors
Thursday, March 26, 2026
GOP MISOGYNIST FEMICIDE
11% rise in maternal deaths in US aid-dependent countries under Republican administrations
Equivalent to 45 extra deaths per 100,000 live births, data analysis indicates ;erodes fifth of fall in global maternal deaths achieved since 1985, say researchers
Maternal deaths rise by around 11% in countries that rely on US aid following a switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration, suggest the findings of a data analysis published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.
This is equivalent to around 45 additional deaths for every 100,000 live births, eroding a fifth of the decline in global maternal deaths that has been achieved since 1985, conclude the researchers.
US foreign aid for family planning and reproductive health services has been heavily influenced by changes in the implementation of the Mexico City Policy—first introduced as the US Policy on Population Assistance under the Reagan administration in 1984, and often referred to as the Global Gag Rule (GGR), explain the researchers.
The policy prohibits disbursal of US aid for family planning to overseas non-governmental organisations that provide, make referrals to, or promote abortion-related services or information, even when these services are financed through non-US funds.
The policy was rebranded as the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy and expanded to apply to all US global health assistance during President Trump’s first term of office in 2017.
To estimate the impact of shifts in funding on maternal deaths, the researchers used data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators for every year between 1985 and 2023 to measure the maternal mortality ratio for 150 countries.
This is defined as the number of 15-49 year old women who die from pregnancy-related causes while pregnant or within 42 days of a termination for every 100,000 live births.
The data were also used to capture the intermediate effects of the GGR on contraception and the percentage of births attended by skilled health professionals.
The GGR was activated during the Republican administrations of 1985–92, 2001–08, and 2017–20, and deactivated during the Democratic administrations of 1993–2000, 2009–16, and 2021–24.
Analysis of the data between 1985 and 2024 indicates that aid for family planning is, on average, 48% higher under Democratic than under Republican administrations.
In those countries most reliant on financial assistance aid, receipts plummet by around 34% per head of the population during Republican administrations. The corresponding falls are about 10% in those countries less reliant on this aid.
While heavily aid reliant countries start from substantially higher levels and remain worse off throughout, declines in maternal deaths have been large over the past 4 decades across the board, the estimates indicate.
The gap in the average maternal mortality ratio between the most and least reliant countries ranges from roughly 445 additional deaths/100,000 live births to around 120/100,000 live births. The gap narrows most noticeably when the GGR isn’t in force.
For those countries with above average reliance on US family planning aid, a Republican presidency is associated with a 10.5% increase in maternal deaths, equivalent to approximately 45 lives lost for every 100,000 live births.
“The effect is consistently observed across regions including Africa, Latin America, and Asia, indicating that the detrimental impact of the policy is not confined to a single geographical context,” point out the researchers.
“Although Africa experiences the largest impact in absolute terms, the percentage impact is greatest in Latin America (16%), followed by Asia (15%), and Africa (7%),” they add.
A US$1 per head higher reliance on US aid for reproductive and maternal health is associated with 25 additional maternal deaths/100,000 live births under the GGR, estimate the researchers.
“The magnitude of this effect suggests that the GGR erodes a meaningful share of the progress made in reducing maternal mortality over recent decades,” they suggest.
What’s more, the GGR also decreases the proportion of skilled birth attendance by around 1%, and reduces contraceptive prevalence by around 2%, both of which likely contribute to the rise in maternal deaths, say the researchers.
This study is based on estimates, and the researchers acknowledge various limitations to their analysis, including that maternal deaths in the World Development Indicators may be under-reported or misclassified, particularly in low and middle income countries with less well developed reporting infrastructures.
But they point out: “An estimated 11% increase in maternal deaths corresponds to roughly one-fifth of the global decline in maternal mortality achieved between 1985 and 2024.”
They add: “Maternal mortality represents only the visible portion of a much larger set of reproductive health risks, including haemorrhage, sepsis, reproductive tract infections, uterine perforation, cervical tears, chronic pain, infertility and elevated risks in subsequent pregnancies.”
During Trump’s second term, substantial cuts have been made to foreign aid and it’s estimated that over 90% of all USAID awards for family planning and reproductive health programmes have been terminated, highlight the researchers.
The USA is not the only nation, however, to have cut overseas development aid, they point out, concluding that: “These results underscore the vulnerability of health systems to abrupt shifts in donor policy and highlight the importance of stable international support for reproductive health services.”
Below is the revised text of a presentation by Frieda Afary to the South African organization, Zabalaza for Socialism on March 15, 2026.
I. What has happened since the United States and Israel launched the latest war on Iran?
The United States and Israel started a new round of bombing Iran on February 28. Since then, they have bombed oil depots; oil facilities; Kharg Island, which is the export hub for 90% of Iran’s oil (4-5 million barrels a day); military sites, missile and drone installations, police facilities; banks; a girls’ school in Minab; hospitals; residential buildings; water desalination plants and world heritage sites.
On the first day of the bombing, Israel targeted the housing complex of Ali Khamenei, “Supreme Religious Leader,” killing him, his wife, daughter-in-law, grandchild, and various government leaders. On March 17, Israel killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official and Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force. On March 18, it killed Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Esmaeil Kahtib in another air strike.
Currently the United States has over 50,000 troops in the Middle East region and has just sent another 2,500 marines. It has sent fighter bombers and assault ships to the region. In the first 6 days, it spent $11 billion on the war and continues to spend over a billion dollars a day on it. Trump has also spoken of sending U.S. ground forces into Iran.
Israel has started bombing Lebanon again and is sending ground troops there. It continues its genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Iran has retaliated by shooting missiles and drones at U.S. bases and military facilities in the region. Its Israeli targets were initially military targets. Now Iran is outfitting its ballistic missile with cluster munitions to bomb Tel Aviv homes, parks, businesses and roads. Iran has also targeted Gulf region oil facilities, oil tankers, hotels, airports and desalination plants. It has blocked the strait of Hormuz and has begun laying mines in it. It has appointed Mujtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, as the new “Supreme Religious Leader.” Since January 2026, the Iranian government has cut off internet access for the public.
Over 2,000 civilians have been killed in the region so far. More than 1,200 are Iranians. Other civilian casualties are mostly in Lebanon. In the Gulf states, the casualties have been mostly among migrant workers.
Over 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran and over a million displaced in Lebanon.
The costs of this war so far have been not only economic, with a 35% rise in the price of oil and the blockage of transit of other needed goods such as food and fertilizer. The cost has also been humanitarian. Tremendous and even irreversible damage has been done to water and air especially in Iran where air pollution and water shortage were already severe. We have also seen damage done to world heritage sites such as the Golestan palace in Tehran.
Apocalyptic language based on Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, and Jewish fundamentalism is being used to motivate and recruit people to fight.
Artificial intelligence is being used in various ways, whether for bombing, shooting missiles or for generating fake videos to promote disinformation.
Globally, the Russian government has gained from this war because the price of oil has increased, and the Trump administration has lifted sanctions on Russia’s sale of oil. Russia has also gained because the anti-missile systems that Ukraine and Europe were buying from the U.S. to help defend Ukraine against Russia’s brutal imperialist invasion of that country are now going to the Middle East. Russia is also helping the Iranian government by sharing secret information about U.S. targets.
The Chinese government has also gained from this war, because the U.S. government will pay less attention to the Pacific Region and might even allow China to proceed with its plans to take over Taiwan.
II. Some Context on Iran 1979-Today, U.S./Israel and Global Shifts
Since its founding following the popular 1979 Iranian revolution against a brutal and authoritarian monarchy, the Islamic Republic has defined its reason for being as opposition to Israel and the United States. It has been a religious fundamentalist Shi’a and Persian nationalist entity which has also built strongly on misogyny and patriarchy. Anti-imperialist, and even anti-capitalist and revolutionary slogans have been used to promote authoritarianism and to destroy any progressive opposition.
Thus, in March 1979, shortly after the revolution overthrew the brutal monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers began the suppression of International Women’s Day protests against the newly imposed compulsory hijab. During that month, a popular referendum declared Iran an Islamic Republic. The new government also began brutally crushing an uprising of the Kurds for autonomy in the North. Much of the Left continued to defend the Islamic Republic as anti-imperialist in the first two years after the revolution. The Islamic Republic, however, cracked down on the Left and killed and executed thousands of them starting in 1981. It also killed thousands more leftist political prisoners after the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. It continued to crack down on any progressive opposition and created a police state.
Since 2009, Iran has had five popular protest waves, each of which was brutally crushed. The first in 2009 after a fraudulent election, sought the reform of the system. The others in 2017, 2019, 2022, and the latest in 2026 sought the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The 2022 uprising known as “the Woman, Life, Freedom” movement gained the most attention from the world because it was led by women burning their headscarves and had a strong emancipatory content. It involved labor and youth activists, national minorities such as Kurds, Baluchis and Arabs. The latest wave of popular protests in 2026 involved over a million people throughout the country and was crushed in the most brutal way. In the course of three days, in January 2026, the government killed at least 7,000 people and possibly 20,000 or more.
Iran has the highest execution rate in the world after China and has many political prisoners.
The Iranian regime has also used its talk of anti-U.S. imperialism and anti-Israel to crush progressive opposition in the countries in which it exerts influence.
Iran’s regional imperialist project began in the early 1980s with its role in the founding of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and later its interventions in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. In the case of Syria, it backed the brutal Bashar Assad regime for 13 years by sending ground troops and crushing the Syrian uprising with the help of Russia. It has spent billions on funding Hezbollah and Hamas and Shi’a militias in Iraq and Syria. Its support for Palestinians is only limited to promoting its own regional ambitions and does not include democracy or human rights for the Palestinian people. In the past few years, it has been selling drones and missiles to Russia for Russia’s imperialist war on Ukraine. It has also been supporting one faction of the Sudanese army in the Sudanese civil war. It is currently supporting the Taliban while promoting hatred against Afghan refugees inside Iran.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was founded by Ayatollah Khamenei as an army outside the regular army. After the eight-year bloody and destructive 1980 to 1988 Iran-Iraq War in which over a million were killed or injured, the IRGC expanded itself and became Iran’s largest capital owner/investor and the embodiment of the unity of the party, the army, and the state. It has 180,000 guards and is part of the larger Iranian army and police force of 1.5 million. Iran has the 8th largest army in the world.
The IRGC has spent an unknown amount on Iran’s nuclear program. In June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Iran had enough uranium enriched to 60% that could fuel ten bombs. After the June 2025 destructive and illegal U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, this nuclear capacity was severely weakened.
As far as the U.S. and Israel are concerned, there is no doubt that they are pursuing their brutal imperialist ambitions in the region. The Netanyahu government wants to crush the Palestinian struggle for independence and has been massacring the Palestinian people. The Netanyahu government is also against any Israeli Jews who believe in the peaceful coexistence of Jews and Palestinians based on equality.
Washington has its history of backing Iran’s previous monarchical regime. The United States is also responsible for later invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the region, which led to the deaths and injuries of millions.
Both the United States and Israel have turned toward the direction of fascism. In the U.S. with the second Trump administration, we have a fascist government which controls the presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. When I speak of fascism, I refer to Robert Paxton’s definition in the Anatomy of Fascism. Fascist rule’s distinct features are the mass rejection of reason and logic, the mass embrace of Social Darwinism or the belief in the superiority of one’s nation or race and the so-called “Survival of the Fittest.” Fascist rule also needs complicity on the part of the elites who bow to it. Fascist extreme nationalism and racism is expressed in a process of internal “purification” by demonizing, dehumanizing, imprisoning and killing members of a group/groups as “Other” or “the enemy within.” This process goes hand in hand with external imperialist expansion/war, misogyny, disinformation, erasure of history, and rule by a strongman. Judging by these standards, in Israel too, the Netanyahu administration is run by fascists.
Both the U.S. and Israel want to collaborate with the Gulf states and Turkey to reshape the Middle East as a fully authoritarian capitalist entity without even paying lip service to democracy or human rights.
The Trump administration had thought that it would bomb Iran for a few days and make a deal with part of the IRGC in order to have an obedient regime in Iran. The IRGC however, has been planning retaliatory attacks for many years and bets on weakening the U.S. and Israel by lengthening the war. It also relies on a multipolar world with Russia and China increasing their imperialist power.
For Russia, which is a fascist and imperialist state, Iran has been an ally state to which it sells nuclear plants, arms, and from which it gets missiles, drones and services in promoting disinformation and terror around the world.
For Chinese capitalist imperialism, Iran is a source of cheap oil, petrochemicals, minerals, and an authoritarian ally. China and Iran signed a 25-year agreement in 2021 according to which China gets $400 billion worth of Iranian oil at a highly reduced price in exchange for building oil and gas facilities and other infrastructure for Iran.
Based on the Trump administration’s Strategic Doctrine, its open alliance with Putin in Russia’s war on Ukraine, and its current lack of concern about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, it seems that these three superpowers have for now come to an agreement about their spheres of influence. This does not mean that the spheres of influence are eternal. Capitalism is not a stable system. It is about poles of capital competing with each other for the extraction and accumulation of monetary value from humans and nature, and entering more and more destructive wars in the process.
An ongoing war in the Middle East sucking in U.S. military and other resources and weakening it, is also very much in the interest of Russia and China as they concentrate on their own imperialist projects and capitalist exploitation of their subjects.
Faced with this reality, it is essential to have an understanding of the achievements, limitations, and possibilities of progressive forces in Iran.
III. Achievements, Limitations & Possibilities of Progressive Forces Inside Iran
The most important achievement has been the 2022 Woman, Life Freedom Movement which raised explicit emancipatory demands involving women, labor, education and the rights of oppressed minorities. That movement was brutally crushed with 20,000 arrests and the murder of over 500 participants.
Over the past twenty years, we have seen the growth of independent labor organizing in Iran among oil and petrochemical workers with temporary contracts, sugar cane workers, bus workers, teachers, and nurses.
Women have constituted 60% of college graduates and speak out forcefully for their rights despite living under an authoritarian, religious fundamentalist government and having only a 16% share in the official economy.
Political prisoners have been organizing inside prisons and writing letters and manifestos.
Iranian intellectuals have produced various translations of key works on philosophy and critique of political economy such as Marx’s 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and Capital in a new translation, as well as some important works on feminism. Other important works on Iranian history, sociology, politics, gender relations, and the rights of minorities have been written by various intellectuals, especially outside the country where they have had more resources and more freedom.
Some key limitations within Iranian progressives have been the following:
Persian nationalism opposes any effort to offer a plan for recognizing and codifying the rights of national minorities to the use of their language and natural resources.
Patriarchy and misogyny still lead to high rates of femicide, gender-based violence, and abuse.
The Iranian Left mostly reduces the concept of socialism to state control of property without any effort to address the alienation of the capitalist mode of production itself. Hence it stays at the level of simply advocating the replacement of private property with state property.
Many on the Left still reduce imperialism to Western imperialism only, and refuse to pay equal attention to Russian and Chinese imperialism as well as the Iranian government’s own regional imperialist interventions in the past four decades.
Given these limitations, various retrogressive entities have appealed to the Iranian masses especially through the use of disinformation on social media and satellite television stations. Thus in the January 2026 uprising, when over 7,000 were confirmed killed by the regime, many people even among the working class were chanting monarchist slogans and calling on Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed king, to come back to Iran and bring them prosperity. Some prominent progressive intellectuals including feminists have also declared their alliance with Reza Pahlavi. Reza Pahlavi in the meantime has not only supported U.S. and Israeli military invasion. He has also been appealing to the IRGC for a number of years to join him in exchange for a full pardon and full participation in the new regime.
Five Kurdish parties have recently created a coalition to prepare themselves for the fall of the regime. While it is not clear whether or not they plan to fight on behalf of U.S. and Israeli forces, it is clear that they are deeply disillusioned with the prevalence of Persian nationalism in Iranian society.
Iran has some courageous and committed intellectuals that we have not heard from recently because they are either in prison or under house arrest or on furlough or parole. Most notable is Nasrin Sotoudeh, a feminist human rights attorney who has been a political prisoner for many years and is currently on parole. Iranian Kurdish women’s rights activists Pakhshan Azizi continues to face the death penalty and speaks out against the regime and U.S. military intervention. Narges Mohammadi, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate is another feminist activist who has been silenced in prison for now.
Given the current brutal and expanding war and these real problems within Iranian society and the region, what can international progressives do now?
IV. What Can International Progressives Do Now?
First: Do anything you can to stop this war. Educate, speak out, protest, put pressure on your government representatives and independent intellectuals. In the case of the United States, public opinion is currently 60% against this war. Most people don’t want to send their children to fight in the Middle East. Half the adult population is opposed to the Trump administration’s attacks on and detention/deportation of innocent immigrants. There is also a great deal of anger about the ways in which mostly wealthy men including Trump, other politicians and even academics have collaborated with and benefited from the late Jeffrey Epstein’s network for trafficking of women and girls for rape and sexual abuse. All of these questions need to be addressed in articulating an anti-war message.
Second: Reach out to progressives in the Middle East or Middle Eastern progressives abroad. Do not limit yourself to talking only about one struggle or one country in the Middle East.
Third: Oppose campism, take a clear stand against all global and regional capitalist-imperialist powers and defend the rights and humanity of the peoples that these powers are oppressing.
Fourth: Address key issues that are holding back our struggles: racial and ethnic discrimination, patriarchy, capitalist exploitation, and capitalist alienation.
Contact Information, blogs and works by Frieda Afary
Frieda Afary is an Iranian American librarian, translator and author of Socialist Feminism: A New Approach (Pluto Press, 2022, Audible, 2025). She produces Iranian Progressives in Translation and Socialistfeminism.org
Antiwar protesters march in Los Angeles, CA, demanding an end to the Iran war. (X/ANSWER Coalition)
Just days after the United States and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran, Iran’s women’s football team walked onto the pitch for their opening match at the Asian Cup and stood in silence as the national anthem played. Within hours, a state-aligned commentator branded the players “wartime traitors.” By the next match, officials were standing beside them as they sang.
Several players initially accepted humanitarian visas in Australia – only for most to withdraw their asylum claims amid reports their families had been threatened. Most of the team has now returned to Iran.Their dilemma offers a glimpse of what war and political upheaval may mean for Iran’s 45 million women.
The first days of the war have already shown its human cost. One of the earliest attacks reportedly hit a girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab, killing at least 168 people, most of them children aged seven to twelve. Investigations into this strike are still ongoing, but the devastation is clear: classrooms destroyed and families mourning daughters who never came home.
These tragedies point to a deeper danger: when ideological regimes face violent upheaval, women’s rights are often among the first casualties. Successors seeking to demonstrate ideological purity frequently tighten control over women’s lives.
This has happened before.
Across Africa, extremist movements have repeatedly used violence against women to consolidate power. In Nigeria, Boko Haram’s brutality intensified following the killing of its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, in 2009. Rather than collapsing, the movement radicalized. Under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, kidnappings, forced marriages, and the abduction of schoolgirls escalated dramatically. Women were coerced into suicide bombings or used as instruments of propaganda and terror. What initially appeared to be a counter-terrorism success rapidly became a humanitarian catastrophe.
Here in South Africa, we have seen how political crises reshape women’s lives. As the apartheid state grew more desperate to maintain control, it responded with escalating repression. Women activists were detained without trial, subjected to surveillance and harassment, and frequently targeted alongside their children in efforts to crush dissent. The struggle for political freedom was inseparable from the struggle for women’s dignity and autonomy. Femicide rates remain six times higher than the global average.
Afghanistan offers an even starker warning. After two decades of international intervention ended and the Taliban returned to power in 2021, women’s rights collapsed almost overnight. Today, according to the United Nations, nearly eight in ten young Afghan women are excluded from education, employment or training. Entire generations have been pushed out of public life into the shadows.
Iran could follow this same pattern.
Under the new ayatollah, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has taken over from his slain father, women could face harsher dress codes, expanded surveillance, and stronger enforcement by morality police. The fragile gains Iranian women have fought for could quickly be reversed.
This would be particularly tragic because Iranian women have been among the most courageous opponents of authoritarian rule in the country.
In 2022, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police sparked nationwide protests. Amini had been detained for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly.” Her death ignited the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, in which women publicly removed their headscarves, cut their hair in protest, and confronted security forces in the streets. The demonstrations spread across the country and inspired solidarity movements around the world.
For a moment, it seemed as though Iranian women might be forcing a historic shift in their country’s political trajectory. But wars have a way of silencing precisely the voices that challenge repression.
Ultimately, any crackdown on women’s rights could leave Iran more isolated than ever. Influential leaders from across the Muslim world have already made clear that they will make it harder to cloak repression in religious legitimacy.
Only last year, the world’s largest Islamic NGO, the Muslim World League, convened the International Conference on Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities, bringing together senior Islamic scholars, political leaders and civil society groups. Led by the League’s Secretary-General, Dr. Mohammad Al-Issa, scholars representing a wide range of Islamic traditions — including conservative Deobandi and Hanafi schools — joined Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to affirm that educating girls is fully consistent with Islamic teaching.
The conference produced the Islamabad Declaration, which states clearly that there is no basis in Islam for denying girls access to education or excluding women from public life. By rooting the case for girls’ education in theological teaching, the initiative directly challenged extremist ideologies like the Taliban’s and even exposed rare internal tensions within the movement.
That shift matters now. If Iran’s new leadership seeks to justify harsher restrictions on women in the name of religion, it will not be able to claim uncontested religious authority. But this moral argument must be backed by global resolve.
If the international community truly wants justice for the people of Iran, it must look beyond battlefield narratives. It must protect activists, amplify Iranian women’s voices and refuse to treat their rights as collateral damage in geopolitical struggles.
Donald Trump called Khamenei’s death “justice for the people of Iran.” But justice cannot be measured by the fall of a single man. It must be judged by whether ordinary people – especially women – emerge safer and freer afterward.
Because history offers a sobering lesson: when wars reshape ideological regimes, women’s freedoms are often the first casualties – and the hardest victories to reclaim.
Aaliyah Vayez is a South African political and security risk analyst specializing in African geopolitics, foreign policy, and global governance. She has advised governments, international institutions, and multinational firms on geopolitical risk and regulatory intelligence across Africa and emerging markets, including work on BRICS expansion and G20 dynamics. Her commentary has appeared in BBC Africa, TRT Global, The Guardian, and more.
