For Leila, a 30-year-old university graduate from Lorestan province — one of Iran’s poorest regions and a recent hotspot of anti-regime unrest — the debates that rage in cities over hijabs and women’s dress restrictions feel remote. What matters most, she said, is survival.
In Borujerd, a city of about 230,000, Leila and her sister live on their mother’s monthly pension of 180mn rials (roughly $130), barely enough to buy the family’s food and medicine. “Our issue is bread,” Leila, who wears a hijab, said. “It has become a huge battle just to secure enough food. And if you want to find a job, there are almost none.”
With living standards in the Islamic republic falling to historic lows in recent months, this sense of desperation has now burst on to the streets — spiralling into the biggest round of protests in Iran in several years.