Tehran: Difference between revisions

Historically, the Iranian government has shifted its views on family planning in the last few decades. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, family planning clinics were closed down and the Iranian government encouraged population growth. The price of birth control pills was inflated from one hundred rials to one thousand rials per pack and the newly formed Iranian Marriage Foundation encouraged marriage by providing newlyweds with furniture. The marriage age was lowered to nine years old for girls and fourteen years old for boys, and polygamy was legalized. However, in 1989, the government's policies began to rapidly change. The war with Iraq had ended, Ayatollah Khomeini had died, and the new leaders were Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Under this new leadership, the government began to directly address the problems of population growth by stating that Islam favored families with only two children. Furthermore, Iran's Health Ministry introduced more readily available contraceptive options to the market, including condoms, pills, implants, IUDs and sterilization. By 1993, the government required that couples take birth control classes before they were married and removed paid maternity leave. An Iranian condom factory reportedly produced more than 70 million condoms per year. In 2006, with the rise of President Ahmadinejad, the government once again called for women to have many babies, which the President labeled to be the "main mission" of women.