Women are playing a central role in the underground churches of Iran despite the risk of rejection by their families and imprisonment by police, research by the global charity Open Doors has found.

Its 17-page report, Women Rebuilding the Future of the Church, found that women work as evangelists, Sunday School teachers and, increasingly, house-church leaders, and argues that, proportionally, more women are involved in ministry in Iran than in many Western countries, despite women not having equal standing in Iranian law.

Although Christianity is suppressed in Iran and conversion away from Islam is illegal, there are an estimated 800,000 covert believers, many of them converts from Islamic backgrounds. According to Open Doors, at least 193 Christians were arrested or imprisoned for their faith there last year. (World Watch Monitor)