Now picture this: you are a world-class athlete, artist, student, or just someone trying to visit a dying parent outside of Iran. You pack your bags, head to the airport, and right before you board…you’re stopped. You are not allowed to leave the country.

Why? Your husband said no. And in Iran, his word is stronger than your will.

This is not a what if situation. This is the day to day experience of and for thousands of Iranian women – and of course there are also many foreign women married to Iranian men.This is not simply a problem about borders. It is about control, vigilantism, and a larger institutionalized system that cages and controls women while passing off as law, culture, and religion.

What is the Law That Allows Husbands to Control Their Wives’ Travel?

According to Iran’s Passport Law Article 18, married women require their husband’s written permission in order to either get or use a passport to exit the country. This is not some obscure, rarely enforced rule; it is enforced regularly, often consciously when women emerge as public, powerful, or independent figures.

And the thing is: husbands do not have to provide a reason. They do not have to go to court. They don’t need to show harm or risk. If they say no, then it’s no. This makes every marriage a possible prison, where the husband has the key.

When Did This Law Begin?

This law became institutionalized after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Iran became a theocracy. A new constitution would outline the narrow interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law) and women who participated in the revolution found themselves pushed into oblivion, while their loss of rights occurred in the name of tradition, religion, and ‘family values.’

The law was based on the principle of male authority as the head of household and a woman as a dependent, that must be “guided” and “protected” regardless of her age, education, or abilities.

How Does this Law Operate as Systems of Control?

This law is not just a law. It is a weapon – it is used as a means to intimidate, blackmail, silence and entrap women. Here is how:

1. Psychological Control – Being told you may be denied freedom of movement at any moment creates an unwavering sensation of anxiety. Asking permission to travel where you should have the right, allows the state to embed dependence, fear and compliance.
2. Career Sabotage – Women working internationally in sports, science, business, and the arts have lost international opportunities because of this law. A husband’s signature to allow a wife to travel and exercise her citizenship has more power, weight, and legal authority than a woman’s entire career.
3. Financial Domination – Some men threaten also to ban travel as a form of financial control. “Sign over your income,” “Quit your job,” or “Give up custody” or you will be banned and controlled inside the country.
4. Revenge and Punishment – Many women are no longer allowed to travel because a husband is angry after a fight, during a divorce, or out of spite when a woman is asserting herself as independent. There is no appeal or process that will be fast and fair enough to undo the damage created by the ban.
5. Control of Foreign Women – This law also has a direct influence on foreign women who are married to Iranian men. As of marriage, foreign women will be granted Iranian nationality and thus become subject to the Iranian legal system – regardless of whether they want to return to their home country. Many women are trapped for years, unable to take their children with them to return ‘home’ and without the freedom to leave the house.

What About Foreign Women? Are They Safe?

No. In fact, they are often even more at risk.

Foreign women married to Iranian men can be particularly isolated, especially if they do not speak the language or do not have access to a legal aid. Some women are brought to Iran with the false pretense of a better life only to have their passports taken from them and their freedom constricted altogether.

Furthermore, some women cannot leave Iran with their children, which is often highly conflated with motherhood, as the Iranian system essentially prohibits a mother from taking a child out of the country without the consent of its Father.

Embassies report heart-wrenching stories of women begging for help, yet unless pressure is put on the regime, ultimately, they are left with no other option.

What Happened in “Not Without My Daughter“

One of the most unsettling examples of this system of control appeared as the true story of Betty Mahmoody, an American woman who ultimately became trapped in Iran with her daughter after being lured there by her Iranian husband.

The story, later depicted in the film Not Without My Daughter (starring Sally Field) in 1991, documents how Betty and her husband travelled to Iran in 1984 with their young daughter for what was supposed to be a short family visit. They arrive, he takes possession of Betty’s passport, declares they are permanently staying, and tells her she will never leave the country again.

He had that right under Iranian law. As her husband, he legitimately had legal power over her. Compounding the issue, as father, he had sole custody rights under Iranian Islamic law. If Betty escaped on her own, she would never see her child again.

She wasn’t just emotionally blackmailed; she was legally owned.

In fleeing 550 miles across mountains to Turkey, her escape was also an act of defiance and survival, against not only her husband but an entire legal and religious system intended to cage her.

What does this story reveal about the larger silence in the Muslim world?

What is just as troubling is how little outrage followed from Muslim communities or clerics, inside or outside Iran. The story incited anger and sympathy in the West, but either ignored or dismissed in much of the Islamic world.

Why? Because it brought an uncomfortable truth out in the open: that social control is normalized, and celebrated in many religiously governed societies, especially in marriage, by men over women. The ummah — the purportedly one Muslim global community — was silent then, and silent since, in this case and in many others like it involving Betty Mahmoody.

No protests by religious scholars. No public condemnation. No theological reckoning. Just silence — or worse, defensiveness. That silence is not neutrality. It’s complicity.

What happened to Niloufar Ardalan?

In 2015, Niloufar Ardalan, the captain of Iran’s national women’s futsal team, was preparing to participate in the Asian Championship. She was accomplished, well-known, and had experienced success.

However, her husband, journalist Mehdi Toutounchi, wanted her home for one reason: it was the first day of school for their son. That was all. That was the excuse. Under the country’s law, that was all that was needed.

Niloufar’s story became public that day, which sparked outrage. Women in Iran and all over the world were aghast. She wasn’t merely a victim, but a national representation of a woman whose talent and ambition were crushed by patriarchal law.

How did the story become a movie, and why did it scare the authorities?

Director Soheil Beiraghi was so taken by her story, he made the film Cold Sweat (Aragh Sard). The film follows a similar narrative of a woman not getting to leave the country immediately before a significant competition, due to her husband withholding permission.

The film is deeply emotional, showing how powerless the protagonist becomes—even as she fights with courts, appeals to officials, and pleads for justice. Despite its artistic merit, Cold Sweat was banned from Iranian state TV. Authorities claimed it undermined “family values.”

What it actually did was tell the truth too clearly, and that made them afraid.

Why Is Religion Used to Justify This Law?

In Iran, the law stipulating that a woman requires her husband’s permission to travel isn’t framed as a cultural issue; it is defended as a divine law. Government officials, religious leaders, and legal authorities invoke Islamic tenets to justify it. It is preached from mosques, state clerics shrug their shoulders and stay quiet, and in the courts, every restriction on women is veiled in religious language. This is not only an issue in Iran. Throughout the Muslim world, this control has been normalized, rationalized, or tolerated. Countries that claim membership within the global ummah—the global community of Muslims—look the other way when Iranian women are caged behind their husbands’ decisions. They don’t acknowledge their complicity when women are prohibited from traveling or working or even from mourning the loss of a parent across a border.

But Why the Muslim World Remain Silent?

Because, in many of these places, the patriarchy is deeply intertwined with the religion. To challenge one is to challenge the other. Religion is not only a defense but it is a way of enabling abusive systems, where survivors are held hostage by words like “honor,” “obedience” and “family.”

What the ummah ignores (yet rallies loudly behind whenever politically convenient) is the systemic abuse inflicted upon women’s bodies under their guardianship at home. The silence is complicity.

Let’s make sure we are clear: When a man is given legal authority over a woman’s body, her choices, and her freedom due to religious teachings or religious authority, this isn’t an inherent misunderstanding, this is a system working as intended.

Religious institutions, texts, and traditions are not neutral. Religiously, they frequently exist to re-enable hierarchy, gender inequity and control, and they adapt only when provoked into revolutions and active resistance.

So yes, this law is religious. And yes, the silence surrounding it is a religious issue too. As long as the moral leaders, communities and scholars of privilege do not overtly and consistently denounce the persistence of such laws, they have co-authored oppression. Whether they do so with scripture, or choose to not speak at all, they produce the same product: women trapped behind prison doors, silenced and punished under the name of God.

Can This Law Be Changed?

There is a small push for change. Some lawmakers have proposed that women should be able to leave the country if there is not a court order prohibiting them. Some of the courts have indeed ruled in favour of women in rare, prominent cases.

Those changes, however, will not alter the system and will not happen until there is public pressure. Such changes are simply a band-aid on an enormous wound.

In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman arrested for supposedly wearing her hijab “improperly” , ignited mass protests calling for rights for women. The world saw the power of Iranian women—and the sadistic, violent nature of a system designed to silence them.

What You Can Do?

• Watch and support banned films like Cold Sweat
• Share stories of women affected by guardianship laws
• Support global human rights organizations
• Pressure governments to demand reforms as part of international cooperation
• Refuse to normalize control disguised as “culture”

Conclusion

Iran’s control of women’s travel is not merely antiquated, it is part of an intentional structure of oppression maintained by fear, patriarchy, and religion. This isn’t about protecting women. It’s about possessing women.

We cannot dismiss these laws as “cultural differences.” We must call them what they are: sanctioned violence. And as long as a woman’s life necessitates the signature of a man, the struggle continues.

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