Music

Street scene with propaganda poster in background – soldiers.

Factory building

Corcoran: Deep inside fundamentalist Iran lies one of the nation’s most controversial facilities.

It doesn’t produce some sort of secret weapon feared by the west, but – condoms and lots of them.

Music

00’05

Corcoran: It’s a symbol of how the dogmatic religious conservatives who’ve ruled here for two decades can also display breathtaking political pragmatism.

00’30

Veiled women in the factory

For these veiled women are on the front line, countering a threat to the very existence of the Islamic Republic—a population explosion.

00’45

Music

Corcoran: At a medical centre in the Teheran suburbs - we’re told to follow the green line.

Music

Corcoran: A line that leads to the unmentionable.

Music

Corcoran: A line that saves Iranian manhood the embarrassment of asking directions – to the vasectomy clinic.

01’05

Poster of three men

Feridoon interview

Super –

Dr. Feridoon Forohari

Jafari Vasectomy Clinic

DR. FOROHARI: You know that the clients - especially because our client are men - they are ashamed - they cannot ask anyone - Oh where can I go to cut my tube?

01’35

Corcoran: Seyed Hashem Hosseini endures a nerve-racking wait for what he hopes will be the kindest cut. The 38 year old mechanic and father of two has finally relented to his wife’s request to put his trust in Allah and in the hands of the surgeon.

01’50

Hashem interview

Corcoran: Are you very nervous, are you very frightened about the procedure?

Hashem: No, my friends have done it – I don’t have any fear, and I’m very much at ease to be doing it in my own country.

02’05

Corcoran: Hashem’s vasectomy is free - paid for by the state - just one of four hundred thousand performed in the last decade.

Part of a program all the more remarkable as it has occurred under the guidance of an Islamic fundamentalist regime.

02’20

Islamic music

Islamic temple

Corcoran: For the nation’s mullahs who forged their Islamic state through revolution, this is the vision splendid.

A deeply faithful society embracing, reliving the golden age of Persian Islam.

02’45

Far from a decadent world, polluted by western values - where families are guided in their daily life by Islam’s holy book - the Koran.

03’15

People sitting on the steps of a temple near water

It’s a life where sex and contraception simply aren’t discussed - as shrouded as the female form.

03’30

Corcoran: But this is the reality that confronts the mullahs –

03’40

a crowded chaotic youthful nation, struggling to get through the twists and turns of everyday life.

People coming down slide in fun park

Political reformists may have recently won a landslide victory in the parliament, but hardline religious leaders still control the social agenda.

04’15

Under the watchful gaze of the morals police - this is about as much fun as you can have in public.

04’30

Holding hands, hugging, any public displays of intimacy are banned - but in the last 20 years the population has doubled to 70 million - so there’s obviously been plenty of activity in the nation’s bedrooms.

04’45

Corcoran in the ferris wheel

Corcoran: It all started back in 1979. When the fundamentalist mullahs seized power, they urged the country to go forth and procreate. They wanted lots of young revolutionaries, and they wanted them now. The only problem was that the country took to this order with a little too much enthusiasm. Ten years down the track, Iran was facing a massive population explosion that threatened the very economic and social fabric of the nation. It was then that the mullahs did a complete about face – it was time they said – for Iran to take a collective cold shower.

05’05

Music

Condoms on a factory line

Corcoran: Contraception was no longer sinful but deemed to be socially responsible.

It was a decree that transformed businessman Kanran Hashemi into the condom king of the Middle East.

He convinced the clerics that if Iranian men were going to be slipping on condoms, they might as well be Iranian condoms.

Kanran proudly boasts that his is the only factory in the Middle East – a prophylactic gold mine running 24 hours a day.

05’42

Kanran in the factory showing the condom.

Kanran: We call this the JB and this is coloured and aroma – and this is for export.

Corcoran: So you’ve got an export market here?

Kanran: Yes we have the export for Europe and north of Iran – Russia. We have about 50 million pieces of condom – our capacity per year—and about 70 or 65% of our production goes for Ministry of Health.

06’20

Woman in the control lab

Corcoran: Down in the quality control lab, they take their work seriously - a kind of patriotic duty.

06’55

Lab technician: And since this factory is the only one in the Middle East that produces condoms – and we are involved in their production, we are proud of ourselves for producing something that helps the third world. Luckily music family and friends welcomed this with open minds, and didn’t make too much fun of me.

Music

People sitting down to classes

Corcoran: While plenty of free condoms are handed around, family planners aren’t so sure that young Iranians know what to do with them. Or any other form of contraception.

07’45

Dr. Rosa: They know very little. As you know in our country, relationships between girls and boys before marriage are limited. It’s against our religious law, so there’s practically no contact between them. Their knowledge of sexual matters is very limited.

Couple sitting in the classes.

Corcoran: These young couples all plan on getting married. But first they have to attend compulsory sex education classes.

For some this is an excruciatingly embarrassing ordeal.

08’17

DR. ROSA: Please join in, we’re all the same, don’t be shy, say what ever you know.

Corcoran: Today, despite international plaudits for their program, family planners are still battling with conservatives who regard such courses as an abomination.

08’43

Dr. Rosa: Often the parents of the couple object to things being discussed so openly in class. We still have a few people, like Mullahs and older people, who come to class and resist the open discussion of matters.

08’52

Women in the class

Corcoran: It was only three years ago that, in the face of conservative opposition, family planners convinced the government to repeal a religious law permitting men to marry girls as young as 9.

09’11

But such victories come at a price. Dr Rosa can only lecture with a religious official watching her every move.

And the men are separated from the women when it comes time to explain the more intimate mechanics of contraception.

09’24

Boy 1: It was only the pill I didn’t know much about.

Boy 2: they teach these things in high school. The difference is that today’s class was more detailed. In school it’s more academic – here they completely explain it.

Ululating women

Couple at their wedding

Corcoran: The state continues to maintain control, even after wedlock.

10’05

Singing/Clapping

Corcoran: Ali and Marjan are taking the plunge and getting married.

Behind closed doors - off come the chadors - it’s designer suits and accessories at ten paces.

10’20

Singing/Clapping

The couple at the wedding party

Corcoran: They’re both doctors - and know full well that if they have more than 3 children - the government will introduce a little hip pocket contraceptive by cutting their extensive child subsidies.

10’53

Interviewer: How many children?

Marjan: Two, God willing.

Interviewer: And after how long do you want to have children?

Marjan: We don’t want to have children in the next two years, because I’m studying – after that, God willing.

11’10

Hashem in the vasectomy clinic

Corcoran: Meanwhile back at the vasectomy clinic, Hashem discovers that the advertised ‘No scalpel’ technique still involves blood and pain.

Though he does his best to maintain a stiff upper lip throughout.

20 thousand men have now gripped the sides of Dr. Forohari’s operating tables.

11’30

Hashem gets a little souvenir - bits of his plumbing left over from the operation.

DR. FOROHARI: His wife will like him, will love him more than lust! - because he has done this procedure just for his wife to be more comfortable)

12’00

Dr Forohari talking to Hashem in the hospital.

Dr Forohari: Are you comfortable….? He’s good…without pain, without any complication. Thankyou.

12’13

Corcoran: Next door at the Clinic staff day care centre, Dr. Forohari shows that his doctors - despite their work - all have happy small families.

He also gets in a plug for his sponsors—Iran’s mullahs—who can’t help but agree that children are God’s gift - just as long as there aren’t too many of them.

12’30

Possible backannouncce

Since this report was filmed Dr Feridoon Forohari from the Jafari Vasectomy Clinic was killed.

Pioneer of Vasectomy in Iran, Dr Forohari was very respected in the medical profession and loved by many Iranians.

Hardliners had accused him of doing non Islamic work several months before his murder.

Reformers believe that Dr Forohari was murdered by Islamic hardliners, although the police and the security forces insist it was a criminal killing.

Although the Police said several months ago that some-one had been arrested in relation to the murder, no-one is able to get any information and journalists were told by the Iranian Authorities not to pursue it.

13’02

Credits:

Iran – The Kindest Cut

Reporter: Mark Corcoran

Camera Ron Ekkel

Editor: Stuart Miller

Producer Vivien Altman