© the eyeranian

I presume you mean Mercy Corps?

I have family in Portand who are part of the executive committee of www.andisheh.org, you can contact them and they will be more than happy to co-ordinate and translation issues for the site for Mercy Corps.

I think they are even having a fund raiser supporting Portland based Mercy Corps.

If you need contact information for Andisheh, send me an email: sasan(at)vit.net

Granted there is corruption, and yes I was angry when i learnt that women medics werent allowed to go down to Bam, becasue after all women need doctors special attention too and I imagine most women in iran would prefer to have a female attending to them (the mahram non mahram issue).
However...
The persian radio (not pro IRI, in fact it is often the opposite) here (Syd, Aust) reported that "karavans" (ie groups) going to or coming from Bam or nearby were being attacked, looted and whatnot. And it was because of this that it was not considered as a safe place for women or children becasue of the relative anarchy. This is the only logical reason I can see for them to have denied women from going.

even if "caravans" were looted outside the city, Bam itself can hardly be categorized as unsafe as there is a large military presence in the entire region now. stop portraying women as possible victims who need extra protection from the almighty men, or they will be harmed in one way or another. red crescent should be ashamed of their bias against female physicians or other volunteers.

Roya, I am not the one portraying anything I was simply passing on what I have heard. But now that you feel the need to rant at me... having gone to iran myself in the past 5 years, I did feel safer in some areas when I had a male family member accompanying me. Does that make me a whimp? No i think thats just being smart, given some of my experiences. Someone with my build and lack of kung-fu expertise wouldnt be able to take on a gang on men, let alone one man. And the mere presence of men DOES scare off many men of that species.

Furthermore, you said Bam itself. It is a problem of GETTING to Bam. And the report did say groups around Bam if im not mistaken. Granted despite the dangers they should have taken "guarded" groups of women. There does seem sometimes to be the "over-protection" of women, IF that is what it is in Iran. Sometimes it seems more like blatant exclusion. My worst experience was at a particularly newly built library in isfahan where women were only given this underground room whereas the men enjoyed almost the entire library.

Nevertheless, it has not reached the severity of the discrimination in saudi.. if thats any consolation.. no i guess not.

Don't let your hatred for a regime cloud your common sense. If groups are being attacked then measures should be taken to stop it, but it shouldnt mean the exclusion of women from the med sector there. Perhaps they thought that with all that was going on they couldnt afford to take extra measures for the security of women. Yes I am going to say it, women are targeted as the weaker sex, and they often physically are.

I would be interested though if you could direct me to past/present sexual discrimination offences of the red crescent.

I don't have a problem with women being protected. I do however have a problem with them being excluded.

In anycase, though we largely agree, i think your response to my post was with unnecessary fervor.

It is a joke to suggest Iranian female doctors may not be safe when the majority of American medical team in Bam is female. Here are some of them:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040103/481/xkj10501031953

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040102/481/xbo10901021648

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040101/481/xkj10701011923

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040101/ids_photos_wl/r2148314482.jpg

OK i was going to say the americans were flying in, but so were the iranians who were stopped from going (ie they werent plannin got cross barren terrain in a rickety jeep). So no i dont understand why women werent allowed. I tried to make sense of it though, i did try.

Anyone know for sure WHY the women were banned from joining the med teams in Bam, or are you guys guessing like me? Is it pure sexism?

There was not a total ban, some women were allowed. why would women be preferred for counselling rather than surgery? makes no sense to me. Is the Boustany article the only source on this?

well if i am to go by this article alone it seems like the wrong people are making critical decisions, which isnt something out of the ordinary.

very sad indeed.