It is now generally accepted that a citizen’s relationship with the State should be governed by human rights and that the State is responsible for ensuring that its agents do not violate people’s human rights in the course of their duties. But that is not all. It is clear that the State has an equal obligation to monitor and prevent violations of human rights when they are perpetrated by non-state actors as well. Legal systems in most countries recognize that it is the duty of the State to enforce criminal law. Since the State clearly has a duty to enforce this law, there should be no debate about whether violence against women is a criminal offence and therefore within the jurisdiction of the State to intervene. Violence against women is always a crime, but some legal systems either fail to recognize this or fail to adequately deal with it. Such failures are violations of women’s human rights. These failures are particularly evident in acts of violence against women that are committed not by State agents, but by non-state actors. Rights & Democracy (R&D) and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) decided to work together on this particular manual because we saw it as an opportunity for both human rights groups and women’s human rights organizations to better understand the scope of the issue. In it, we examine the nature of violations perpetrated by non-state actors and focus on how activists should document and campaign to address violence committed against women by non-state actors. Although women everywhere are subject to this type of human rights violation, the global scope of the issue is better understood through examples drawn from activists’ experiences within various Muslim contexts. Our immediate goal is to provide activists anywhere in the world with additional tools to struggle against impunity.

Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran's clerical rulers have been preoccupied with setting limits on the rights and role of women and have taken many initiatives to impose gender discrimination under the rubric of applying Islamic law. Laws have been enacted sharply restricting women's educational and professional opportunities, reinforcing male control over women in the family, imposing gender segregation in many arenas such as sports activities, requiring all women to wear dark and concealing uniforms, and adding discriminatory features to the criminal code. However, Iranian women have fought to roll back such discriminatory laws and have managed to pressure the government to make some concessions to their demands for enhanced rights and opportunities. Since these policies could have been expected to remain constant if they had been dictated by settled cultural norms, the frequent alterations in the policies on women demonstrated how the regime's treatment of women reflected political shifts. There have been certain initiatives to impose gender segregation or discrimination that were followed by readjustments, such as the abrogation of the pre-Revolutionary Family Protection Act, only to allow subsequently certain modest reforms enhancing women's rights in personal status. Similarly laws removed women from all roles in legal practice and judiciary, only to allow them back later in various capacities. The level of gender discrimination enforced could also vary with the locale. In the holy city of Qom, where restrictions and repression are high, the government's own statistics has shown a much higher rate of depression among young women than has been found in the more liberal environment of the capital. Although Iran has engaged for over two decades in systematic and often egregious discrimination against women, it has never been as vigorously condemned by the international community as the Taliban have been. International law is currently inequitable in failing to criminalize systematic gender discrimination where this closely resembles racial apartheid in its scope and impact. The attitude of the international community needs to change on this score. Although gender apartheid and racial apartheid are not perfectly congruent, they are close cousins. In the discriminatory treatment of women in Iran, and in most other Middle Eastern countries, one finds inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one group (men) over another group of persons (women).