Muslim

When people in the West discuss Muslim countries, they often say that in the past treatment of women has been unacceptable, they often follow up with remarks such as things are improving. Just what that means is not clear but here is one example. When Ayatollah Khomeini took control of Iran in 1979 many things changed to follow the Koran. One of the many things he did was to lower the age of marriage for women to nine. It took years of activism to raise the age again. In 2002, the legal age for girls was raised to 13, although marriages below that age are still allowed with the consent of a guardian and a court's permission. Later, slight increases in the minimum legal age, child marriage (defined as marriage under 18) remains a significant issue in Iran, with thousands of girls under 15 being married annually. To people in the West this is child abuse.