Hijab supervisor in Shiraz metro sexually abuses 9-year-old girl to ‘test maturity’

According to human rights sources, a hijab supervisor sexually abused a nine-year-old girl in a subway station in Shiraz, southern Iran, to “test maturity.”

Lawyer Mohammad Hadi Jafarpour told the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) that the officer aggressively touched the child’s breasts.

The law enforcement officers then informed the mother that her daughter had to wear a hijab because of her “protruding breasts.”

Jafarpour, who witnessed the incident, said there is no oversight of hijab supervisors whose violent and sexually abusive actions plague the country’s women and girls as the regime struggles to enforce a nationwide rejection of the hijab requirement.

“This lack of accountability severely hampers the ability to take legal action in cases of misconduct and protect citizens’ rights,” the lawyer said.

Hijab supervisors are not qualified as judicial officers and are only allowed to issue verbal warnings to comply with the hijab obligation.

“They have no other powers, such as touching people, recording vehicle numbers or taking photographs,” he explained.

In 2022, authorities introduced facial recognition technology in the subway Surveillance cameras photograph unveiled womenThe increased attention followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody while wearing a hijab in September 2022, which sparked widespread “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests.

Last year, the city of Tehran deployed 400 staff to enforce hijab laws in the capital’s subway stations. Iranian news sources and social media accounts documented an increased presence of officials equipped with camerascalled “Horror tunnel” for women as the crackdown on wearing the hijab only intensified in the wake of the 2022 uprising.

Iran’s Me Too movement has documented hundreds of cases of state-sponsored sexual abuse and humiliation by Iranian security forces and hijab enforcers. The UN has called the recent legislation “gender apartheid” as women and girls face increasing oppression under the Islamic regime.