Runaway Girls

To tie our theme of movement/immigration to this week's reading, which traced the history women's rights from the late 19th century to today, I found some interesting news pieces about the incidence of runaway girls in Iran. Most of the articles I found were written in 2000/2001, but it is not unreasonable to think that this issue persists today. This BBC article cites that authorities find and take in 30 runaway girls every day, a figure that may only represent a small fraction of all runaway cases. For many of these girls, the only option once they've fled home is prostitution.

The BBC article mentions the Reyhaneh House, a women's shelter that houses girls who have run away from difficult family situations. It turns out that a documentary called Runaway was made in 2001 profiling the Reyhaneh center.

Obviously runaway children are not a phenomenon limited to Iran alone. However, I did think that the BBC article and the film synopsis framed the runaway problem in the context of Iran's traditional roles/rights for women. The reading for this week talked about Iranian women "fighting back" against regressive policies that have eroded their social and political rights -- is running away a way of fighting back, a last resort indicative of a deep-rooted repression of women, or something else?

Afghan Refugees in Iran

I thought this story was an interesting parallel to last week’s post as it discusses Iran’s reaction to Afghan refugees within its borders. It’s called Times get tougher for Afghan immigrants in Iran and it comes from Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). I chose this perspective because the most I could find about Iranians actually migrating was centered around the Islamic Revolution in the late 70s. Last week we discussed the dire situations refugees were living in once they returned, forcibly or not, to Afghanistan. This article describes another difficult situation as Iran is beginning to forcibly return more and more Afghanis. The issue arises in that as the national migration laws have become stricter i.e. legal migrants need to renew documentation; Afghans fall into illegality and then can be forced back to Afghanistan.
Besides the difficulty of the situation in Iran, balancing national sovereign issues and a destitute population, the article also speaks once again to the overall lack of international aid. I was shocked by this: “While Iranian authorities claim to spend 6 US$ a day for every Afghan refugee, United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spends the same amount in one year.”
I think this article is an important link between the refugees we see and realizing the lengths that they have gone to escape Afghanistan, only to overwhelm Iran, and eventually get sent back. It’s an even more complicated issue than one of lack of international funding because the massive number of immigrants has begun to affect Iran.
Here’s another more recent article about the forced removal of Afghan immigrants (Iran Expels Afghan Refugees). If these migrants are truly refugees, as in they applied and received status under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees/1967 Protocol, how can they be removed? I was under the impression that refugee status meant permanency and that there was a legitimate life-threatening concern in one’s home country that required international protection. If these Afghan immigrants are refugees (in the legal sense) is Iran acting illegally? If so, can anything be done? Or, is this just an example of a nation exercising its sovereign rights and demonstrating the weaknesses of international accords?