Photo Essays

The image of women in Iran has undergone dramatic change in recent years. Today, many Iranian women play a much more active role in their nation's economic and social life than during the Shah era. More than half of all students at Iranian universities are female. And in professional life, many Iranian women are keeping pace with their male counterparts, working as doctors, engineers, teachers and university lecturers. As actors and directors, they are making a significant contribution to the cultural life of their nation. And despite all the restrictions imposed on them by Islamic moral guardians in public life, they are making their presence felt in the sporting world too – something that would have been unthinkable just decades ago.

In the years 2003, 2004 and 2006, Ikhlas Abbis travelled through the marshlands of southern Iraq. He took photographs of the process of development taking place in the swamps, which were drained under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and reflooded after his overthrow.