19
she founded a new NGO made the conscious decision take on the name the “Association
for the Defense of Women’s Human Rights” in order to benefit from the legitimacy and
authority accorded to human rights.
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This stands in stark contrast to past situations in
which women’s groups went out of their way to avoid “human rights” discourses and
associations.
A third indicator of socialization often pointed to by constructivist authors is
institutionalization.
63
Although the full institutionalization and habitualization of which
Sikkink and Risse speak is still far from reach in the Iranian case, promising signs of
institutionalization of norms corresponding with IHRN can be sighted.
Institutionalization first began in the 1980s through the creation of government entities
focusing on women’s issues (e.g. the Women’s Social and Cultural Council created in
1987 during Khomenei’s presidency).
64
Since then, Majles has created a Women’s
Commission and even the conservative judiciary has agreed to create a new Office of
Women and Family Affairs. The Center for Women’s Participation and the Women’s
issues departments in various ministries play have regularly pivotal roles in the
promotion of women’s rights norms by adopting a variety of positions corresponding
with international norms as a result of its leadership and lower level bureaucrat’s
interactions in international fora and their association with President Khatami’s rights
oriented political platform. This has been undertaken through education campaigns and
formulation of government policies subsequently presented to members of parliament,
the judiciary, and the clerical establishment through deliberation and persuasion
processes. In effect, the institutionalization has resulted in a sort of state-sponsored norms
entrepreneurship. As Hoodfar observes, such institutions tend to serve both as a forum for
women’s complaints and successful lobbying forces, despite the fact that they are run by
government appointees.
65
This institutionalization, however has extended beyond localized women’s rights
concerns and encompasses the institutionalization of a revised posture towards both the
merits of and intentions behind international norms which Ziafar describes:
I believe in this period a new human rights strategy resulted in which it was held that
what international society says (which regard to human rights) is not necessarily political,
though it may be possible for politics to be mixed in as it often is, but there is a current in
international society that has a human rights message that we should accept as a genuine
belief in human rights and work on it (our policies) as such.
66
Thus, in many of these institutions, increasingly international norms are being used as a
reference when deemed helpful. According to Mehrpour, despite the pervasive attitudes
which previously presented barriers to bureaucrats’ making use of international norms,
more and more, Iranian officials recognize that not all international norms are
objectionable, and as in the case of raising the age of marriage for girls, they have come
to more regularly consult and take action in accordance with international norms.
67
Molaverdi echoes the sentiment. “Recently there is increasingly the view that we should
62
Interview with Molaverdi.
63
See for example Checkel at 13.
64
Halper at 41.
65
Hoodfar at 22.
66
Interview with Ziaifar.
67
Interview with Hossein Mehrpour, Special Advisor to the President on Constitutional Rights by Shadi
Mokhtari in December 2002.
Convention