An Overview of Population Policies in Iran in the Past Half Century

The first population control program in Iran was implemented in 1337 at the recommendation of the United Nations, but coordinated population control programs began in 1348. In the years before the 1357 revolution, the growth of Iran’s population decreased from 1.3% to 1.2% due to these programs. After the revolution and due to various factors such as Ayatollah Khomeini’s emphasis on having more children, the population growth rate began to rise again, reaching around 4% during the late war period. According to available statistics, between 1360 and 1370, over eighteen million people were added to Iran’s population.

In 1367, however, concerns about the rapid population growth and its social and economic consequences prompted officials to adopt policies to prevent births.

After the end of the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq and at the same time as the beginning of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency in 1368, the policy of population control in Iran was adopted with the slogans “Two children are enough” and “Fewer children, better life”. This policy led to the fastest recorded decline in a country’s population growth rate, reducing Iran’s population growth rate from 3.2% to 1.2% in a short period of time. The implementation of this program was so successful that in 1999, the United Nations Population Control Award was given to Alireza Marandi (the then Minister of Health).

Despite this, since 2009 and during the second term of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the stance of Iranian officials towards population control policies changed and people were encouraged to have more children. Concerns about the aging population and declining birth rates were the main reasons for authorities to adopt new policies; however, it seemed that issues such as viewing population as a tool of power and reinforcing traditional norms by returning women to their traditional roles within the household were also involved in this decision. Ahmadinejad had previously expressed opposition to the “two-child policy” in 2005, saying: “These Westerners have their own problems and because their population growth is negative, they are worried and afraid that our population will increase and we will dominate them.”

After the announcement of the 1390 census, Mr. Khamenei also joined the ranks of supporters of population growth and urged officials to seriously reconsider population policies. In a speech, he admitted that the “one-child policy” was a mistake that should have been stopped in the mid-1970s and expressed hope that God and history would forgive this mistake. In November 2013, Mr. Khamenei emphasized that not having income, job, and housing should not prevent marriage and childbearing, saying, “I still believe that our country is not a country of 75 million people. Our country is a country of 150 million [people]. Now we have taken at least one hand, we said 150 million; it can even be more.”

Does population policy have a religious or political root?

By examining this process, we can discuss the policy of population growth and its causes in the modern era.

According to the above account, the rulers of the Islamic Republic have been beating the drum of population reduction and “less children, better life” for two decades. This shows that the religious and traditional roots cannot be the main and primary factor in the rulers’ decisions to oppose or even prohibit any form of birth control.

In the decades following the revolution, the rulers of Iran have opened their hands to escape from well-known jurisprudential and religious rules in various executive areas by proposing issues such as “primary rulings, secondary rulings” or “systemic interests” or “preserving the system is the most important obligation”. In this way, “politics” and “systemic interests” have become the most important indicators in their decision-making. With these assumptions, they have considered espionage, torture, and massacre of humans permissible and even necessary for the sake of interests and preserving the system; let alone increasing or decreasing the population.

Based on this, the new policy of increasing population has more political reasons and, as will be discussed in the rest of this article, also has security reasons (based on the illusion of conspiracy).

The political reason is the same public advertising that Mr. Khamenei has also stated and emphasized; that is, if the policy of population control is on the agenda as it was two decades ago, after a while the population of Iran will suffer from aging (in this particular case, experts should give their opinion and the writer does not enter into it).

But according to this same assumption, Mr. Khamenei stated with the most irresponsible approach that the economic problems of a few important groups are not important and our country can even compensate for at least one hundred and fifty million. So far, this imaginary and mental thinking has been shown. How can a government that is facing multiple crises in providing water, bread, fuel and housing for this population, manage and provide for a population twice as large?

Confronting Western Conspiracies; Reasons for the “Security” Policy of Population Increase.

In this section, we will discuss the deeper reasons behind the conspiratorial mindset of Mr. Khamenei and his associates regarding their policy of increasing the population.

It became clear to the writer when the previous parliament voted against the proposal to ban child marriage.

At first, it came to mind that the main reason for opposing this prohibition is religious and jurisprudential issues, but we will see that this is not the case and political and security reasons have been actively working behind the scenes of the parliament.

Opposing the ban on the child-marriage plan can be considered as an example and “symbolic” case study to analyze the deeper roots of population growth policies in times of economic hardship.

On the fourth of Mehr month in the year 1397, the representatives of the parliament passed a bill to amend Article 1041 of the Civil Code regarding the prohibition of marriage for girls under thirteen years old and boys under sixteen years old, with 151 votes in favor, 34 votes against, and 7 abstentions.

This plan aimed to address the social, psychological, physical, and emotional damages, as well as the educational deprivation, problems in raising children, and increasing divorce rates in these types of marriages. However, the Judiciary Commission of the Parliament has announced that this plan has been rejected in this commission. This news has received widespread backlash due to its highly unreasonable and anti-human rights content.

Butterfly Salhashoori, one of the representatives of the Women’s Commission in Parliament, has been mentioned as one of the active and dedicated individuals in this project. It seems that there is opposition to this project from a specific institution (1). This is while previously, Tayebeh Siavashi, another activist of this project, had said that we have had meetings with authorities and have also received their approval (2).

Furthermore, Fatemeh Hosseini, representative of Tehran on Twitter, wrote with reference to the numerous previous text messages opposing the financial transparency plan and against money laundering: “Once again, dozens of text messages to members of parliament; this time to combat a plan aimed at preventing child marriage. These days, the organized text message machine containing lies, accusations and threats has been turned on again.”

The news of the rejection of this plan in the Judiciary Commission was reflected in the media outside the country, accompanied by numerous analyses and interpretations. Almost all of them focused on the role of religious laws in relation to this plan and made mostly valid criticisms regarding the interference of religion. Let’s not forget that some also questioned the Islamic Republic’s commitment to Islam. Their actions, however, can be understood in the context of the overall situation.

However, among the many people who have delved into analyzing this issue, it was not seen that anyone had even read the news correctly and searched a little about it. It seems that they all have pre-prepared analytical templates and just change the title of the topic and then repeat their usual analysis; of course, one person in a television interview also mentioned the role of the people in small towns from which these representatives come, and considered the people of those areas to be supporters of this plan; of course, this is also just a guess and a very likely incorrect one; because in most small towns in the country, child marriage is not common and has no supporters. The cases that are happening in some areas are mostly rooted in economic factors or sometimes are very specifically related to cultural and religious factors, rather than the size of the city.

This type of ease in analyzing news and its cliché arrival is one of the harms that has become a trap in today’s media space, and even worse, social networks. It is clear that this point does not contradict the role and emphasis on the role of religious leaders in the prevalent corruption, but in this particular case, there is less attention to very clear codes in the statements of three representatives of the parliament – one of whom said we have also taken the fatwa of the authorities, and the other said we have been ordered by a “special institution”, and the third mentioned the clarification of organized text messages.

Based on this, it can be said that this particular issue now has a major security aspect, and is being led by organized opposition and resistance against it by military-security institutions. A little investigation into the news reveals this behind-the-scenes situation easily.

A review of the anti-divorce news with the ban on the child-marriage proposal.

In the beginning of the second of November 2018, “Kayhan” published an analysis based on the dual “Guidance of the Supreme Leader” and “Alien Version”. A summary of this detailed analysis is as follows:

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“Kayan Report from Behind the Scenes of a Plan: Rewriting of the New Version of Aliens for Reducing Iran’s Population”

Relying on foreign versions is a key factor in creating a population crisis in Iran.

One of the most important factors contributing to the population crisis in our country is relying on the solutions offered by foreigners, especially Westerners, through international institutions in this sector. The esteemed Leader of the Revolution stated on the first of Farvardin this year: “Some of our officials in the corners and outskirts of the country have more trust in the solutions of foreigners than in domestic solutions, and this is a big mistake. You can see that the same population policy of the West, which is “less children, better life”, is a Western policy. They themselves have acted on it and are now facing problems. They are giving rewards for having children in families. They want to compensate for their backwardness, but it is not beneficial. Some have accepted this policy, the Western solution. A few years ago, we insisted, we said – in speeches, in private meetings with officials – to remove the obstacles to producing offspring; the officials also accepted, confirmed our words; but unfortunately, there are

In general, four international organizations, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), have been and are active in controlling the population in the country. Their main focus is promoting the use of contraception through the Ministry of Health. Studies have shown that the World Bank has had the most impact in limiting the Iranian population compared to other international organizations, but the continuous presence of the United Nations Population Fund office has also been noteworthy and highly influential.

Increasing the minimum age of marriage; the new version of the West for population control.

In addition to organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund, which aims to implement population control policies worldwide under the guise of “maternal health care”, Western countries pursue this policy under the cover of “supporting adolescent girls” and through conventions such as the “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women” and the “Convention on the Rights of the Child”, as well as documents like the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

The strange effort of the women’s fraction in the parliament to increase the minimum age of marriage.

At the same time, in accordance with international conventions and documents, there is a movement in our country’s government and parliament to increase the minimum age for marriage to eighteen in various countries around the world…

The most important event in increasing the minimum age of marriage in our country is the new version of the aliens for reducing the population, the “Amendment to Article 1041 of the Civil Code” (restricting the marriage of girls under sixteen), which was prepared by the Women’s Fraction of the Tenth Parliament.

Of course, the members of the Women’s Faction in the Parliament, in defense of the proposal to increase the minimum age of marriage for girls, have only claimed without presenting any reliable statistics (read: presenting false and unreliable statistics) that the divorce rate, dropping out of school, and even deaths caused by pregnancy among married girls in this age group have increased. They have made no mention of the necessity of passing this proposal in line with the implementation of international conventions and documents…

The dangerous consequences of the social, economic, and cultural impacts of the approval of the women’s faction plan in parliament.

Overall, the approval of the “Amendment of Article 1041 of the Civil Code” (restricting marriage for girls under the age of sixteen) is definitely a major step towards implementing the wrong and new version of foreigners in the field of population and will ultimately lead to a decrease in population and exacerbation of the population aging crisis, which is completely against the national interests and population policies of the country. Therefore, it is expected that the members of the parliament, especially the members of the Legal and Judicial Commission of the parliament as the main reviewing commission of this plan, will not be influenced by the sensational and false keywords such as “child marriage” and “child marriage” used by the members of the Women’s Faction and their supporting media, and will carefully review the amendment of Article 1041 of the Civil Code, which has a destructive and long-term impact on the country’s major and vital indicators.

Up to this point, only foreign plans were mentioned and “Kayhan” had only used the security keyword “behind the scenes of a plan” and there was no talk of “infiltration”, but a little over a month ago, the Fars news agency published a report of the arrest of a dual-nationality researcher and the summons and arrest of “a number of infiltrators in the field of population control”. The accusation against the detainees by the Sepah Intelligence was that “these individuals, by infiltrating some institutions such as the Ministry of Science, Ministry of Health, Parliament Research Center, Organization of Planning and Budget, Statistical Center, Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency, etc., were obstructing the proper implementation of the general policies of the system” (4).

Hassan Ashna, the head of the Center for Strategic Studies of the Presidency and advisor to the former president, said: “We ask Fars, which is like the police of the country, to allow others to take pride in securing the population. The same goes for the environment, for now it is sufficient.”

The next security report and analysis was also published by “Kayhan”. A summary of this lengthy analysis is as follows:

“Kian Documentary Report on an American Guideline”

The anniversary tsunami of the Iranian people; Kissingers version on the parliament table.

For the past two years, a coordinated team consisting of several representatives of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (members of the Women’s Faction of the Assembly), several social activists in the Imam Ali Society, along with an individual who has been trained in social policy in England, have been working with the support of international institutions such as UNICEF and spending significant funds to hold conferences, meetings, produce a film, and create mass media productions centered around the “legal prohibition of marriage at a young age.”

The ban on marriage at a young age is not just a national decision and the result of a two-year effort by several individuals in the country’s policy-making bodies, but rather completing an old puzzle in a long-term horizon to change social structures in a developing country like Iran.

The increase in the population of rival countries is a threat to America.

Everything goes back to forty-four years ago; the day when Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor of the United States, placed the NSSM200 document on the desk of President Richard Nixon in the White House and discussed it in a meeting with the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Secretary of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The confidential report, titled “National Security Study Memorandum: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests,” addressed the issue of “the development of human resources in rival countries of the United States” and “the power of these countries through population growth,” “increased exploitation of raw resources, and consequently, “economic growth corresponding to it.” From 1974 to 2000, this was considered the most significant threat to national security and foreign policy of the United States. One of the emphasized topics in this document is the challenge of

“Bazook policies for population control in various forms; proposed strategy”

Kissinger emphasizes in this document that “political interventions must necessarily be proportional to the relationship between the United States and the mentioned government, as well as the prevailing culture of the people of these countries; so that population interventions are perceived as policies for individual and social progress and do not face resistance. For this purpose, extensive research must be conducted on the social behaviors of targeted societies.”

This document proposes three fundamental strategies for achieving the maximum impact and minimum sensitivity and resistance in order to achieve the goal of reducing fertility: 1- Family planning for poverty alleviation and population control for economic progress, in order to replace the mindset of government officials that more human resources will mean more unemployment and that reducing human resources is necessary for progress. 2- Employment opportunities for women outside the home; in order to reduce opportunities for childbearing by promoting slogans such as women’s rights, gender equality, and women’s social presence and progress. 3- Legally increasing the minimum age of marriage in order to reduce opportunities for childbearing for women, with goals such as creating educational opportunities for girls and creating necessary conditions for women’s participation in the job market.

International institutions are tools for advancing American strategies.

One of the strategies outlined in this security document for various devices is to establish and guide the missions of specialized international institutions in different areas such as children, women, the elderly, and population and family at the international level, so that in cases where a state considers the United States as an enemy, it does not fall behind in the plans of this document. Additionally, this document places special emphasis on supporting non-governmental organizations and concerned individuals in target countries, who can be indirectly utilized as political tools by the United States when necessary.

The first strategy for these actions in Iran was also implemented in the 1970s with the approval of the Population Control and Family Planning Law, fully supported by international institutions such as the World Bank, which, with its continuation, led the country to a fertility rate below the replacement level…

The Iranian Anniversary Tsunami; Designers’ Flower of Increasing the Minimum Marriage Age Plan

Perhaps in the eyes of some interior designers, the proposed increase in the minimum legal age of marriage (amendment of Article 1041 of the Civil Code) is simply a few numbers being changed in the laws; but foreign designers surely understand that sixteen-year-old girls and eighteen-year-old boys are not “children” and that this proposal is being implemented in target countries as part of more significant goals (which have been revealed to us to some extent through the irresponsible release of US security documents). If the outcome of such recommended plans is the same as what we have seen in the form of the “Iranian Year of Aging Tsunami,” future generations will never forgive the victims of the colorful policies of international institutions.

This same analysis was republished on the Telegram channel of Soft War Officers with the title “Iranians’ Anniversary Tsunami, the Kissingers’ Plan on the Parliament Table”.

“Analysis by Mashregh News, citing Voice of Russia.”

Monitoring the story further, but it leads to something more important: According to Mashregh News Agency, citing Voice of Russia, in an analysis dating back three years. This is also a detailed analysis, the summary of which is as follows:

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According to the international group Mashregh, the voice of Russia reported in a special report about America’s future plans to dominate the world’s population. The state radio of Russia, in an article titled “The Dark Side of America: Sterilization with the aim of reducing the world’s population” by Milena Zmiljanitsch, reported on the unilateral plans of the United States, which intends to control the population of countries around the world based on its own national interests…

Kissinger has proposed measures to significantly reduce the population and wrote: “Now the West is dependent on importing and exporting minerals from developing countries. If the population growth of these countries hinders our economic development and social progress, this instability means that their future production and mineral reserves will also face recession. This plan suggests that in order for America to gain control over the underground resources of these countries, their population must be visibly reduced.” (6).

In this way, all of these stories become behind-the-scenes for rejecting the ban on child marriage in the Space Commission of the Parliament, despite its previous urgent approval with a relatively high vote in the Parliament. Now we have to wait again for this same show of force in the open session of the Parliament under even more difficult circumstances than before.

Summary

The current situation of the problem is very clear. A security analysis in Russia claims that Americans (under the management of Kissinger) have been pursuing a security plan for controlling the world’s population for years, especially in their targeted countries.

An analysis seemingly done by experts in Iran has also concluded that due to the decrease in population growth rate, the country’s population is heading towards aging. This analysis has been turned into a guideline and directive by Mr. Khamenei, stating that the discussion of “fewer children, better life” is a Western idea and should not be trusted in its Western version. “Kayhan” also follows this discussion, but this seemingly expert discussion (which could have been independently discussed in academic spaces) quickly turns into a political-security project; a project whose theory was previously nurtured in Russia. Is this a coincidence or is the publication of it by a security media three years ago proof of imitation and influence? (If we disregard other possibilities such as the infiltration of supporters of this policy in the intelligence apparatus of the Revolutionary Guards).

Opposition and hostility towards the proposal to ban child-marriage and the promotion of population growth, particularly through beating the drums of national security, has a political and security root; although at times, it has also exploited religious issues for its own advancement.

In any case, the final result is the same as what happened before in the former Soviet Union. Trofim Lysenko, who was responsible for the biology branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, held the science of genetics hostage for fifteen years and purged many bourgeois scientists with accusations of “imperialist tools”, “collaborators of fascism”, and “counter-revolutionaries”, sending them to prison and exile.

“Nearly three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rulers of Iran have also taken steps towards securing specialized areas such as fighting AIDS, protecting the environment, demography, and so on: the illusion of conspiracy, chasing imaginary worlds, and baseless and unsupported ambition that ultimately led to the collapse of its economy. Nixon had called the Soviet Union a giant with wooden legs.”

The Soviet Union, which had a large and powerful global bloc by its side, ultimately met such a fate; what would become of a small giant with wooden legs and, of course, broken branches.

Notes:

1. Butterfly of Chivalry: “A special institution has told representatives to oppose the child marriage proposal”, Event 24, 20 December 2018.

2. Tayebeh Siavoshi: “We have obtained the fatwa of the authorities regarding the prohibition of child marriage”, Evening Iran, 3 Dey month 1397.

3. Rewriting of the new version of Aliens for population reduction in Iran, Kayhan, 2 November 1397.

4. Arrest and summoning of influential figures in the population control area, Fars, 6 December 2018.

5. The Tsunami of Aging in the Iranian People, Kissingers Version on the Parliament Table!, Kayhan, 5 Azar 1397.

6. America’s plan for “sterilization” of men and women in developing countries, Mashregh News, 27 Farvardin 1393.