Femicides and honor killings remain a reality in Iran. Patriarchal laws continue to claim the lives of innocent women. The most recent case is the murder of 17-year-old Mobina Zeynivand, a young girl from Ilam province in western Iran.

Her life was ended by her own father, Rahim Khan Zeynivand, who shot her with a shotgun because of her relationship with a young man.

Mobina attended school in the village of Sheikhmakan, where she met a boy from another tribe. However, there had been conflicts between these two tribes in the past.

According to sources, her father was against the relationship due to long-standing “tribal disputes.” The situation escalated when the boy visited Mobina and the couple was spotted by her cousin. An altercation ensued and Mobina, fearing for her life, fled to a neighbor’s house. But her father tracked her down, dragged her home and shot her dead in front of her mother.

This act was later confirmed by Ilam’s police commander, Jamal Soleimani, who downplayed the incident by calling it a “family dispute,” a common euphemism used by Iranian authorities to describe honor killings.

The Mobina case is not an isolated incident. In Iran a legal framework rooted in Islamic law offers leniency to men who commit such acts. Under the Islamic penal code, fathers who kill their children are protected from punishment by “Qisas” (retribution) and thus enjoy virtual impunity. In addition, Article 630 of the penal code allows a man to kill his wife and her lover if he catches them committing adultery without being punished.

Critics have long pointed out that Iran’s patriarchal culture and legal system contribute to the high rate of honor killings. These killings, often carried out for reasons as trivial as a woman’s refusal to wear the mandatory hijab, are a reminder of the oppressive environment in which many Iranian women must live.

Recent reports indicate a rise in honor killings across Iran. The Etemad newspaper reported that at least 85 women were killed by male family members in April, May and June of 2022, 2023 and 2024, with Tehran leading the statistics.

On March 29, a 21-year-old girl in a border village near Abadan was killed by her father. On April 7, a 27-year-old woman was stabbed to death by her brothers in Ahvaz in front of her husband. In May alone, a series of murders occurred: a man in Mashhad killed his wife and injured her 16-year-old sister and brother; another man set his wife on fire in Kosar Hospital; and a six-month pregnant Afghan woman was murdered by her husband for “disobedience.”

These are just a few examples of the countless lives lost in a culture that values ​​a man’s honour over a woman’s life. The full extent of this crisis may never be known, as many honour killings go unreported and families and communities conspire to keep these atrocities secret.

Organizations like Stop Femicide Iran are working to shed light on this epidemic of violence. Their efforts resulted in a 60% increase in femicides in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year. Of the 93 registered gender-specific killings, almost half affected young women aged 15 to 35.