Serious consequences of not providing students’ records to mothers

Some schools in Iran have received a circular prohibiting them from handing over the children’s records and diplomas to their mothers in the new school year. The news caused a wave of concern and criticism of parents and users in cyberspace, which is a new sign of the regime’s discrimination against women.

“Do fathers even know what class their child is in?” This was the first reaction of a group of audiences and users in cyberspace to this news published by the state media about the refusal of schools to give transcripts to students’ mothers.

The news states that a circular forbid the presentation of transcripts to mothers and schools are allowed to hand over transcripts and educational records of students only to the father or paternal grandfather of the students.

Some families have received text messages from schools stating that with the utmost respect for mothers, the student’s record will only be given to the student’s father.

Reacting to the news, some mothers wrote on social media, “With these behaviors, they make our children not respect ourselves either.”

Another mother wrote in protest: “All the work of the child is the responsibility of the mothers, from the birth to the upbringing, to helping them in their school lessons and taking them to school. Now they don’t give us their records? Why do you disrespect us so much?”

Reacting to the news, some other men and women wrote, “Really, many fathers don’t even know which school their kids are attending.”

Iranian society, which is facing news and mishaps in its eastern neighbor these days, including the Taliban government’s severe restrictions on women in Afghanistan, does not further tolerate discrimination and inequality against women, and the slightest move in this regard severely offends public opinion and damages the society and causes the loss of trust.

This is not the first time that the education system has published news about discrimination in the treatment of parents of students. Similar news had been published in previous years, and in some schools, we witnessed the implementation of such letters. As patriarchy continues in Iran under the mullahs’ rule, we reach the day when they remove Mother’s Day from the calendar to make them feel safe.

Even if it is ultimately determined that it is not true, it has a huge negative psychological impact on women in society. For women whose lives in Iran are full of discrimination, the spread of such news has no other benefit than intensifying isolation, anger, and pushing women back, and enduring destructive psychological pressure on them.

The fact is that Iran’s civil law, partly related to family law, has stated that the child’s guardians are the father and paternal grandfather. The law facilitates that the father and paternal grandfather have guardianship on the child’s financial matters. Therefore, in Iran’s society, every department and organization, according to this law, introduces the child’s affairs to the father and generalizes it to other matters. From educational work to child therapy, and the mothers are completely expelled.

Under Iran’s law, the child has a state of assets that belongs to the father and is owned by the father, and the mother has no authority to make decisions for her child.

In fact, under Iranian civil law, the mother’s authority to make decisions for her child is as much as a stranger, and all issues are related to the father and paternal grandfather.

In the case of divorce, the issue of child custody is with the father, and if the mother wants to take custody of her child, she must go through a tortuous path.

And that’s not the entire discrimination against the women, as one of the mothers said: “But that is not all. For example, the mother cannot get an Irancell SIM card for her child under the age of 18 in his name. But the father can do that. The mother cannot insure her child easily. Even in most banks, they don’t allow the mother to open accounts for them in her child’s name. It is all the crime of being a mother.”