Iranian women are rightfully complaining (Dutch) that the West only talks about their country’s nuclear program, and not about women’s rights. These rights, and the horrific treatment of women in Iran, are ignored. This while the West likes to pretend that it cares deeply about human rights.

These women want the West to stop focusing completely on the nuclear program and, instead, to pay time and attention to women’s and human in general rights. Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, is one of the Iranian women who call on the West to change its focus. She believes, like others, that pressure from the West could very well result in women gaining more freedoms in Iran; relatively at least.

The reason that the West does not talk about this subject is much is simple; how Iranians treat them women does not have any immediate impact on us, or so we believe. Nuclear weapons endanger us. But the treatment of women? Not so much.

Not directly that is. Western governments would be wise to keep in mind that women raise children. Children who are raised by unhappy and uneducated mothers are unlikely to be happy and educated themselves. Keeping women in check, so to speak, results in more anger among the population at large and, perhaps, in more extremism.

This is something we should take into consideration. In a globalizing world, we are all connected with one another.