An informative video created by the One Million Signatures Campaign to help explain their work for gender equality in Iran.

The One Million Signatures Campaign is an international grassroots effort at the forefront of the Iranian women's movement. Also referred to as the Campaign For Equality, they are dedicated to achieving gender equality in Iran through peaceful and legal means. The campaign aims to collect one million signatures in support of a petition to the Iranian Parliament that asks for the revision and reform of current laws that discriminate against women.

Nobel peace prize winners, the Dahli Lama, and other well-known international figures have expressed solidarity with the campaign. In March 2009, the One Million Signatures Campaign received the prestigious Global Women's Rights Award, "in special recognition of their ground breaking work to demand an end to discriminatory laws against women in Iran" from the Feminist Majority Foundation. They also received the Simone de Beauvoir Award in honor of their work to promote women's rights in February 2009.

One Million Signatures Campaign members celebrating International Women's Day on March, 2008 in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Aida Sadat and Nasim Khosravi. 

Founded in August 2006, the One Million Signatures Campaign uses an innovative "face to face" approach to educate Iranians, especially women, about the negative impact of discriminatory laws. Iranian laws severely limit or negate women's rights in social, marital, and financial matters. For example, polygamy and extramarital affairs are legal for men. If a woman's testimony is accepted in court, it is only worth half of a man's testimony. Men can divorce their wives any time for any reason, but women must receive their husband's permission to divorce. If permission is granted, women are usually forced to sacrifice any financial support owed to them. Learn about other laws that discriminate against women.

According to a special report by UN human rights experts, the Iranian government has been cracking down on women's rights advocates, especially people involved in the campaign. As of November 2008, the U.N. issued communications to Iran about human rights violations against more than70 members of the One Million Signatures Campaign. Some government officials and politicians have signed the campaign's petition, but the Iranian government has denied members access to public meeting spaces and the news media. Their website, Change For Equality, is continually blocked and filtered. Campaign members are subject to harassment, and more than 45 have been arrested.

One Million Signatures Campaign members celebrating International Women's Day on March, 2008 in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Aida Sadat and Nasim Khosravi.

The campaign describes itself, "as a unique experience in the history of the struggles of women in Iran ... (that) has been able to attract many individuals regardless of geography or ideology." Many of those individuals are young women and men, which is unprecedented in the movement for legal gender equality in Iran. Their demands do not oppose Islam nor does the group oppose the Iranian government. They seek to work within peacefully and legally within the existing system. While acknowledging considerable improvements in women's status in Iranian society, they advocate the need for legal reform to parallel the progress.

The group governs itself democratically, without a defined hierarchy or centralized control. By not accepting financial support from any organization, foundation, or government, the campaign maintains their status as an independent movement. Read more about the One Million Signatures Campaign's groundbreaking role in the Iranian civil rights movement.