About 90 women sports halls are expected in Tehran by March.

Tehran Mayor attended a ceremony to inaugurate Al-Zahra women-exclusive sports halls in Municipal District 10 on Nov. 23, marking the birth anniversary of Hazrat Masoumeh (SA), the sister of the eight Shiite Imam Reza (AS), ISNA reported.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf said that 10 other halls would be inaugurated weekly in different locations of the city, adding up to a total 90 halls by the yearend (March 20).
He said apart from being used as exercise centers, the halls serve the dual purpose of emergency and crisis management centers.
Qalibaf recalled that the first such sites had been set up in Municipal District 19.
The dominant sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity have endangered women’s health, he said, blaming the absence of sports clubs as one of the reasons behind the situation.

Poetess and storywriter Ghazal Tajbakhsh was born in a village in Boroujerd, Lorestan province in 1942.
She got married at the age of 15.
She continued her studies and was admitted into Tehran University in 1967. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commercial management in 1971.
Three years later, Tajbakhsh was given appointed as a teacher by the Education Ministry.
She is the mother of four children.
Apart from her numerous cultural and social activities, Tajbakhsh heads the Ghazal-e Iran Association which is the meeting place of poets and literary critics. The association was founded in 1981.
She has published 11 works including novels and poetry. Some of her works include Omm-e Abiha House (1996) the narration of her Hajj pilgrimage, Little Fellows (1983), Unseen Friend (1991), On Flying Wings (1991) stories which were first published in Zan-e Rouz Magazine and later compiled in a book.
Others include ’Pens and Shadows’ which is about the life of Hazrat-e Fatemeh (SA), poetry collection titled ’Mamoun, the Ghazal of Stone Rains,’ ’Four-Leaved Cloves’, a research book titled ’Woman, Poem and Thought’ (1999) and other short stories and articles printed in various publications.
She was commemorated alongside other contemporary poetesses including Fatemeh Rakei, Sediqeh Vasqami, Simindokht Vahidi and Nahid Yousefi at the ceremony dubbed ’Praisers of The Lady of Sun’ in July 2006 for her contributions to religious poetry. The Writers and Poets Foundation held the event to mark the martyrdom of Hazrat Fatemeh (SA).

Makeshift self-employment marketplaces for women heading households will become permanent in Tehran.
An advisor to the city’s mayor on women’s affairs explained, “Given the onset of the cold season and adverse climatic conditions, the temporary stalls would be wrapped up and transferred to permanent ones in Tehran’s fresh marts.“
According to Zahra Moshir, breadwinner women could use the stalls to market their products on a rotational basis, Fars news agency reported.
Highlighting that there are 1,200 single mothers under the coverage of Tehran Municipality, she said the municipality plans to provide them with 300 permanent pavilions.
Moshir continued that those wishing to hire the stalls would have to pay meager charges. “Should the women belong to families of martyrs and the war-disabled or introduced by welfare centers, they would have to pay as little as 400,000 rials as monthly rent,“ she added.
“Negotiations are underway to even scrap that amount and cede the stalls free of charge.“

Sediqeh Qannadi

Iranian Women News Agency (IWNA) launched its 21st office in Shiraz, Fars province.
Addressing the 10th gathering of Islamic City Councils of Provincial Capitals on women’s affairs, head of the Assembly of Women Members of Islamic Councils said, “As the sole news agency in the world specifically dealing with women’s issues, IWNA is the pride of Iranian women.“
Sediqeh Qannadi asserted that feminist websites have lost their visitors since the launch of the news agency, IRNA wrote.
According to her, the agency has enriched news and information about women published in domestic newspapers and publications.
Elsewhere in her remarks, she explained that the assembly endeavors to find problems facing women and devise plans to solve them.
“Since the Islamic Council is still a new entity in our society and is not functioning as it should, women’s challenges need to be resolved through collaboration with other organizations,“ she commented.
Qannadi expressed hope that the Islamic Councils would in the third round help lessen problems facing the female population.
IWNA was initially launched at Tehran Islamic City Council in Nov. 2004 on a trial basis and was officially inaugurated in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi in early 2005.

Atlasiha website was officially inaugurated on Nov. 23 during a ceremony attended by Hamedan Governor General Behrouz Moradi, advisor to governor general Zahra Mousavi, local officials and a number of girls and women.
Mousavi who is also in charge of the secretariat of the provincial Women Working Group told IRNA that the website aims to disseminate news targeted at and boost support for women.
She said the website has been designed by Bamdad Information and Communications Technology Company within three weeks and at a cost of nine million rials.
“It was dedicated to Hamedan girls and women on the auspicious birth anniversary of Hazrat Masoumeh (SA),“ she added.
The secretary noted that the website presents news about women of the province, Iran and the world, as well as great ladies of the Muslim world. It also includes a photo gallery. The site helps boost interaction between the Governor General’s Office and the local female population.
Those interested can refer to www.atlasiha.ir or www.hamedanwomen.ir for further information.

Senior UN official pressed for world action to protect women’s rights on the eve of an international day of action to eradicate violence against women, including “honor“ killings, genital mutilation and gang rape, AFP reported.
“We are working with partners to end impunity, to promote and protect the rights of women, including the right to sexual and reproductive health, and to foster equal opportunity, participation and decision-making,“ said UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.
She made the remarks in a message ahead of Saturday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, when a 16-day, UN-backed campaign against the problem was to kick off.
The UNFPA was to join with rights organizations around the world to focus greater attention on such pervasive human rights violations and make recommendations, including legislative reforms and providing safe havens for girls escaping forced marriages.
UNFPA said it plans to highlight five under-reported types of gender-based violence:
- Bride-napping: the abduction, rape and forced marriage of young women throughout Central Asia.
- Breast-ironing: a traditional practice in some West African countries involving crushing the breasts of young girls in order to deter male attention.
- An epidemic of traumatic fistula in Africa, often caused by gang rape, tearing the tissues between the birth canal from the bowel and/or the bladder and leading to incontinence and ostracization.
- The ongoing murder and mutilation of women in Guatemala under a cloak of media silence and official neglect.
- The forced marriage of girls to older men in the world’s poorest nations, which means the girls cannot complete their education and are at greater risk of being exploited and contracting sexual infections, including the HIV virus.
Among common examples of violence targeting women, UNFPA cited
the following: Thousands of young women are killed every year in the name of “honor“ in western Asia, north Africa and parts of south Asia; At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to live are “missing“ due to sex-selective abortions or neglect; At least 130 million women have been forced to undergo female genital mutilation, with two million more at risk each year.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour meanwhile singled out the plight of women migrants who are often victims of trafficking or other forms of exploitation.
“Local and supposedly ’traditional’ forms of violence against women, such as female genital mutilation or forced marriages, globalize as well, moving along with their potential victims,“ Arbour said in a message for the international day.
“These human rights violations are not inevitable consequences of women’s migration,“ she added. “They can be curbed if states are truly committed to protecting migrant women against violence, trafficking and exploitation, without denying them the option to migrate legally, if they choose to.“

Local women selling farm crops in Roudbar, Gilan province

The ascend aimed to commemorate the Basij Week.

Concurrent with Basij (volunteer force) Week (Nov. 22-28), 70 mountaineer women from the cities of Ilam, Mehran, Ivan, Dehloran, Abdanan, Darreh-Shahr and Shirvan-Chardavel ascended the 3,000-meter Kabirkouh heights, 50 km southeast of Ilam.
Director general of Ilam Physical Education Department, Reza Asadi, explained, “The athletes managed to plant the Iranian flag at the summit after an arduous climb through the steep cliffs,“ IRNA reported.
The ascend was aimed to commemorate the Basij Week. Ten of the climbers were awarded at the end of the ascend.
Presently about 1,500 female and male athletes are members of the provincial Mountaineering Board.

In a proactive program where women can keep on hand at all times at least two free packages of emergency contraceptives--also known as the morning-after
pill or Plan B--the pregnancy rates are no lower than when women have normal access to emergency contraception, study results suggest, Reuters reported.
Dr. Elizabeth G. Raymond, from Family Health International in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and her associates theorized that making access to emergency contraception as easy as possible would result in fewer pregnancies.
In the “easy access“ arm of the randomized trial, 749 women were given two free packages of the pills (levonorgestrel 1.5 mg, Plan B), which were replaced whenever the women asked for them.
In the “standard access“ arm, 744 women were simply advised about how to obtain emergency contraceptive pills if they needed them. The subjects were sexually active females ages 14 to 24. At the end of the 12 months, those in the easy access group had used significantly more pills sooner after unprotected intercourse, compared with the control group (12 hours versus 36 hours).
Nevertheless, the incidence of pregnancy per 100 person-years was 9.9 in the increased access group and 10.5 in the control group, not a significant difference.
The authors point out that the risk of STDs in the easy access group was slightly lower than in the control group, but not significantly different, relieving fears that easy access would increase STD rates.
Raymond’s group discounts the possibility that emergency contraceptive is not very efficacious. Moreover, the theory that emergency contraceptive is counteracted by increased risk-taking was proven not to be the case in their study. Instead, they believe that even when they could have emergency contraceptives on hand, subjects who became pregnant had not used the pills. The investigators therefore conclude that a proactive program like theirs “would probably not be feasible for widespread, long-term use outside a study.“ Instead, they suggest a strategy that would target women at the highest risk of pregnancy.