Women’s activists have marked 25 November as a day to contradict all forms of violence against women and the campaigners seek to eliminate violence done against women.
In the modern world, the evil of inequality, humiliation, sexual harassment, and a domineering masculine violence against women still continues to exist. The most prominent instances of violence against women are sexual slavery and social deprivation and limitations. Not only in the under-developed but also in developed countries women are subject to various physical and psychological practices of violence and pressure. Many of these victims are wives and daughters who are regarded as the possessions of the husbands and fathers. Multitudes are also the victims of the clandestine cults and political groups wherein they are abused as sexual slaves, instruments to advance the cult and group’s objectives, and in general, servitudes of a masculine hegemony.
An example to reveal the hegemonic abuse of women is the condition of female insiders of MKO. The predicament of these insiders, who under the hollow slogans of being the pioneers and heroines of freedom and democracy suffer crushing physical and psychological pressures, is even worse than those living in the outside world. They are under severe physical and psychological cult bounds of the organization and deprived of free will, thought, and even imaginations.
In two phases, at least to mention, women suffered under the extreme exploitation exercised by MKO. In the first phase, on pretext of removing obstacles for the advancement of the struggle, the leaders ordered compulsory inter-organizational marriages. These marriages didn’t take place according to the members’ tastes or ages. This was closely related with rising and degrees of merit. Meanly, it was related with how much the members had adapted to the organization. The couples thus married were forbidden to have children and their conjugal duties and meetings were under strict control.
In fact, the marriage was an ideological practice; the couples were the property of the organization and their marriage had to be channeled for the advancement of organizational ends rather than to secure familial and emotional relations. The target was not love, emotion, sexual pleasure or continuation of the generations but the control of the forces and maintenance of the organization. Women were utilized as the objects of controlling the male insiders and motivating them onward.
The second phase began with the ideological divorces after MKO’s failure in the operation Eternal Light. To justify the failure, Massoud Rajavi in 1991 completed his philosophy of ideological revolution by the decree of ideological divorcing. He gave the command of general divorcing of all married members. Thereafter, women, suffering grave humiliation, had to succumb to the wills of the leaders. In 2003, the world was shocked to see members of MKO setting themselves on fire to protest Maryam Rajavi’s arrest by French police. Two women members, Marzieh Babakhani and Neda Hassani, died of the injuries. They had the order to sacrifice themselves for the leader.
Many of women members are crushed under heavy physical and psychological pressures at the present. They suffer humiliation by regular confessions of the sins they have never committed before other members and have to write and report about their dreams and fancies. Where in the world women are treated as they are? Confined within the walls of a heavily guarded military camp in Iraq, these women are susceptible to any form of assault and harassment.
If international bodies and Women’s activists seek to eliminate violence against women, a proven case of exploitation and violence extends before their eyes. If they are determined, they can easily hear the help cries of these women. They do not wish for much; they want to live like any ordinary woman in the world.
Mojahedin.ws – Bahar Irani – December 3, 2006