Marry or be fired, Iranian firm tells its staff

IRAN. A major Iranian state-owned company has told its single employees to get married by September or face losing their jobs, the press reported yesterday.

“One of the economic entities in the south of the country has asked its single employees to start creating a family,” the hardline Kayhan daily reported.

The paper did not mention the name of the company but the reformist Etemad newspaper said that the firm is the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone Company, which covers Iran’s giant gas and petrochemical facilities on the shores of the Gulf.

“Unfortunately some of our colleagues did not fulfil their commitments and are still single,” Etemad quoted the company’s directive as saying.

“As being married is one of the criteria of employment, we are announcing for the last time that all the female and male colleagues have until 21 September to go ahead with this important and moral religious duty.”

The giant energy zone of refineries is located on Iran’s Southern coastal energy hub Assalouyeh where temperatures reach 50 degrees in Summer, hardly a place for families. The workers are usually young males seeking to earn a good income and the decree appears aimed at making them marry to ensure they eschew sexual temptations during their stay away from home.