Iran has announced the appointment of its first female ambassador abroad since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Reuters reported.
Citing unspecified reports, Iran's semi-official Fars and Mehr news agencies said late Monday Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham, would take up the ambassador post abroad, but the location of her position was not made clear.
Already one of Iran's most visible female public figures, Afkham would be Iran's second ever female ambassador, and the first since the Iranian Revolution transformed the country in 1979. The nation's first and only other female ambassador, Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, served in Denmark throughout the 1970s.
Former Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed the nation's first female minister in 2009, and the country's current president, Hassan Rouhani vowed to improve women's rights during his election run in 2013, but wide reforms have been slow to arrive.
Meanwhile, international human rights groups have long criticized the Islamic Republic's failure to tackle gender issues, especially domestic violence and forced marriages for girls as young as 10.
