TEHRAN (Iran News) – National marriage week is celebrated across the country on July 12-18.
This year, the day focuses on youth-related fields. The Ministry of Sport and Youth has assigned each day of the week with a special theme as follows:
Monday, July 12: Timely and conscious marriage, promoting simple life, dealing with emerging customs and useless rituals
Tuesday, July 13: The role of premarital counseling in a lasting marriage
Wednesday, July 14: Promoting and facilitating marriage with the participation of charities
Thursday, July 15: Youth empowerment, strengthening family management skills in young couples, healthy and vibrant society
Friday, July 16: Marriage, promoting childbearing, strengthening parenting skills, a dynamic and growing young community
Saturday, July 17: Promoting the Iranian Islamic lifestyle and family excellence
Sunday, July 18: Media literacy, educating young people by social media content
Holding a number of campaigns aimed at creating a culture of easy marriage is also one of the important actions of the sports and youth ministry this year, Azam Karimi, Director of youth social planning and development said.
Currently, 430 specialized counseling centers across the country provide free counseling to young couples during the national marriage week, she stated, IRIB reported.
During the one-week event, several online meetings with the presence of related experts will be held, she noted, adding, 800 media products on the subject of conscious marriage and the reduction of social harms and the role of marriage counseling, will be published.
According to Karimi, 3,700 centers are currently working in the field of social harms, including behavioral harms, street violence, malnutrition, children of divorce, the fight against addiction, street and labor children.
Mohammad Mehdi Tondgooyan, deputy minister of sports and youth, has said that the marriage rate downward trend after 17 years, despite the prevalence of the coronavirus and its economic consequences, has risen and Iran experienced a five percent growth in marriage.
The marriage rate in Iran has increased by 5 percent over the past [Iranian calendar] year (March 2020-March 2021).
Demographic issue
The fertility rate in Iran has been declining over the past eight years, the lowest of which was related to the past [Iranian calendar] year (March 2019- March 2020) with a birth rate of 1.2, according to the data published by the Statistics Center.
The number of births in the whole country faced a downtrend over the past three years, as registered births decreased to 1,196,135 over the past [Iranian calendar] year; a difference of roughly over 120,000 to 16,000 per year.
Population decline comes up with consequences, including the reduction of the working population (aged 15 to 64) and the aging population in the coming decades.
Some 14 policies to support childbearing and the family were announced by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in [the Iranian calendar year] 1393 (March 2014-March 2015) when he stressed that social, cultural, and economic development should be done in accordance with these general policies to support families.
The policies address the need to increase the population and the various dimensions of it, including childbearing, facilitating marriage and strengthening the family, reproductive health, promoting the Iranian-Islamic lifestyle, empowering young people, honoring the elderly, and the environment, which can lead to an increase in the quantity and quality of the population if it is timely and continuous implemented.
