Iranian citizens were elect a new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The official result is clear, the outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad won against his main opponent, the reformer Mir Hossein Moussavi. The result is suspect however since Ahmeninedjad received the majority of votes in his opponents’ electoral strongholds. In France, the Iranian community voted at the Iranian Embassy. When the results were announced, demonstrations were quickly organized with the slogan “where is my vote”.

Every pictures of this portfolio was made in 21st-century Iran, state where I have been going regularly for 10 years. For this tenth presidential election since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the women’s participation (as well as the youth one) was decisive. The weight of their vote had permitted, in 1997, the election of Mohammed Khatami. Their abstention had given the victory to Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad in 2005. During the electoral campaign, the women’s mobilisation was reinforced by a new fact: reformer candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi’ wives have taken a great part in their husband’s campaign, and have not hesitated to take the microphone in public to reclaim more...

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the spearhead of an Islam willing to open to the world. A state of tradition, where religion is everywhere, and inks each mere nothing of the daily life, but which also appeals the modernity. In this environment, women are a good reference to observe the mood of the place. Nowadays, they can free themselves from patriarchal and chauvinist codes, to create their own company. They start joining in the institutions, and play with their femininity. In Saudi Arabia, under the impulse of the opening of the country, the whole society is freeing itself.

For ten years, Isabelle Eshraghi has been working, as a photojournalist, on visual investigations on the situation of women in different Muslim countries: Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger. Along the years, she witnessed several changes in those societies, avant-gardist or conservative, and the women fights, their laughter, their hopes, and their despairs. The Westerner vision often reduces their life to the veil, arranged wedding, violence, and terrorism. The urge of the news doesn't give us time to understand the reality of Muslim societies. Because of prejudices and common pictures of Islamic countries, we make women all tarred with...

The arrest of the alleged responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, Rodovan Karadzic, reminds us the event which was the worst tragedy of the post second-world-war history in Europe. In 2004, 9 years after the slaughter of 1995, some surviving people were still waiting to recover their relatives’ remains. Isabelle Eshraghi proposed a collection of portraits of Srebrenica widows. This testimony recovers all its sense with the arrest of the one who claimed himself to be the president of the «Serbian Republic of Bosnia».

Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, almost half of the 300 000 Christians of Iran, mostly Armenians, have left the country. The community of Jofa, settled here 400 years ago, remains. The freedoms granted by the Islamic Republic, are enjoyed in a restricted area : without any Muslim friends, in the apartments, the cultural or sports clubs, the 13 churches of the district. In private, the Armenians can drink their wine, not wear the veil.

(in the small town of Keita, ten hours driving from the capital) Niger is the poorest country in the world. Landlocked Sahelian country, twice as big as France, it is considered as a priority in terms of “human development” by the United Nations. With an average of 7,5 children per woman, the population could quadruple by 2050, and go over 50 millions inhabitants. Report in the region of Tahoua, a land of savanna and arid plateaus, crossed by camels, cows, donkeys and sheep. In the small town of Keita, the women have been struggling since 1984 against drought. Whereas the men, discouraged, chose exodus, women decided to stay. Being owners of a piece of land, they committed to plant a...

Women find peace in the dar ul aman Escaping the daily violence of their husband or family, the last resort of Pakistani women is to find refuge in the Dar ul Aman, “House of Peace”, and wait for being able to become reintegrated in society. In Pakistan, around 80 % of women suffer physical, sexual or psychological violence during their married or family life. Trying to escape this domestic violence is often synonym of death. A husband, a brother or a step-brother won’t hesitate to dispense justice themselves, convinced to restore the “honor” of the family. The women who were able to leave their husband asked for a divorce but are destitute, and can find protection for a while inside a...

I went back to Isfahan to see the women that I had met and photographed ten years before. Through the photographic lens, I wanted to impress the mark of time, to observe their living, to perceive what had changed in Iran through the daily lives of these women. Some new behaviours and new ways of consumption have appeared. But the future is still uncertain.

Since 1979 and the islamic revolution, Iranian beaches are splitted in two by boardings, one side for men, the other for the women, who ought to keep their clothes on. In spit of Police, holidaymakers manage to share some forbidden activities like swimming together in the sea or let a part of their unveiled body tan.