Current status of sexual health and rights indicators in Iran : an overview

Sexual health and rights indicators provide essential tools for monitoring the status of individuals’ sexual health and its rights, in various countries. This paper discusses sexual health and rights indicators in Iran. The indicators under study are derived from similar indicators developed by Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women, for the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development monitoring project. Four HIV-related and three other indicators, including legal age of marriage, median age of women at marriage, and status of violence against women (VAW) were examined in this study. Iran has made several achievements in combating HIV/AIDS, with the focus on injectable drug users, and has countered a series of challenges in the determination of VAW prevalence, the increase of high risk behavior in adolescents, and sexual education for this group. The most important message of this paper is that special attention to challenging issues in Iranian individuals’ sexual health could promote their current status.