Mariam Behruzi (born 1945) is an Iranian lawyer and former member of the Iranian Majlis.

In 1980,
she was one of four women elected to the first Majlis, where she continued to serve until 1996. She
worked to improve women's and family issues, successfully campaigning to have a committee on
women's issues created within the Majlis. Behruzi also worked to have more women included in the
judiciary, and her efforts resulted both in a reversal of a ban that prohibited women from studying law
and a change in public opinion on women in law in Iran.

Early life[edit]
Behruzi was born in 1945 in Tehran to a prominent clergyman. She completed high school and,
despite being married at 15, studied at university. She had a son, who was killed in the IranIraq
War.[1]

Career[edit]
After beginning university, Behruzi started to provide education on the Qu'ran to Iranian women. She
participated in the protests against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi that led up to the 1979 Iranian
Revolution in which the Shah and thePahlavi dynasty were overthrown. Though barred from political
activity in 1975, she continued to participate secretly, and was jailed from 19781979. [1]
In 1980, Behruzi was among four women elected to the first Majlis, the parliament that was
established after the Iranian Revolution.[2] She, along with other women, helped found the Committee
of the Family within the Majlis. They met regularly with the civil court judges, where they examined
family issues and came up with ways to solve women's issues within the family setting. [3] Behruzi
was particularly concerned with improving divorce courts, which she found to focus too little on
women and children and specifically to favor fathers in custody issues. She also worked to improve
the rights afforded to divorced wives. Behruzi also tried to establish a committee for women's issues,
though this did not pass.[1] Behruzi was re-elected to the second Majlis, along with two of the three
other women from the first Majlis.[4]
Behruzi created the Zeinab's Association (also referred to as the Zainab Soceity) in 1986 or 1987.
This was a political party that focused on women's education and social and political awareness, and
encouraged its members to pursue women's issues by pressuring the Majlis and religious leaders. [1][5]
In 1991, Behruzi was one of nine women elected to the fourth Majlis. During her term, she continued
to work on family and women's issues. She pushed to have women included in all of the Majlis
committees, and passed a bill allowing women to retire after twenty years in the civil service.[1]
Behruzi campaigned, along with five other female candidates, for election to the fifth Majlis. She was
by now well-recognized as a politician working to improve women's issues, and became more bold in
her condemnation of a culture that diminished women's work. She was not elected, but her work
resulted in the creation of a women's committee on the Majlis.[1]
No longer a member of the Majlis, Behruzi began to work to have more women appointed as judicial
advisors. This was a difficult issue, as men and women did not generally work together per religious
practice, a practice that she supported.[6] However, she used examples of women's contributions to
the Islamic revolution, statements by Ayatollah Khomeini encouraging women to participate in all

areas, and arguments rooted in Islamic feminism to argue for reversal of the prohibition on women
working in the legal system that had been introduced when Khomeini came into power. She
succeeded, and women were again able to study law. Her work has been credited with a broader
change in views on women in the Iranian judiciary.[1]
Behruzi also worked as an organizer of the Iranian Women's Islamic Association, and chaired the
Islamic studies program at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.[1]