{"id":6237,"date":"2025-06-13T22:03:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T22:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/?p=6237"},"modified":"2025-06-13T22:04:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T22:04:28","slug":"world-day-against-child-labour-child-labourers-in-iran-the-hidden-victims-of-broken-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/children\/world-day-against-child-labour-child-labourers-in-iran-the-hidden-victims-of-broken-structures","title":{"rendered":"World Day Against Child Labour: Child Labourers in Iran\u2014The Hidden Victims of Broken Structures"},"content":{"rendered":"

13 June 2025
\nNews category: Children
\nBreathing in Confinement: <\/strong>12 June has been designated by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as the World Day Against Child Labour\u2014a reminder to global conscience, a call to raise public awareness, and a collective push to end a painful phenomenon that continues to deprive millions of children of their childhood, education, play, and human development.<\/p>\n

Iran is among the countries where child labour has become a distressingly normalised part of life. Children, caught in the grip of social injustice and poverty, are drawn into the labour cycle while the laws meant to protect them are routinely ignored.<\/p>\n

On this occasion, the Prisoners\u2019 Rights League in Iran takes a close look at the human rights dimensions of child labour in the country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Child Labour: The Embodiment of Structural Injustice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Child labour in Iran symbolises a broken economic, social, and political structure that sees children not as developing human beings but as cheap, compliant labour. In such a society, children are deprived not only of their rightful access to education, play, creativity, and mental and emotional growth, but also conditioned from a young age for obedience, suffering, and economic and social exploitation.<\/p>\n

The main forces pushing children into labour in Iran include failed state policies, poverty, economic inequality, family incapacity, and exploitation by capital owners.<\/p>\n

The economic crisis, soaring inflation, unemployment, and the destructive policies of the Islamic Republic have all created fertile ground for the rapid growth of child labour in Iran\u2014children who, instead of sitting in classrooms, spend their days at traffic lights or toiling away in hidden workshops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Shadow Without Statistics<\/strong><\/p>\n

An examination of child labour in Iran reveals that official figures provided by state bodies are significantly lower than field estimates and reports by independent experts.<\/p>\n

According to a report by the Parliamentary Research Center (July 2023), approximately 15% of all children in the country\u2014an estimated 1.6 to 2 million\u2014are engaged in labour. By contrast, Nahid Tajeddin, then-MP for Isfahan, had estimated in 2017 that the number ranged between 3 and 7 million, stressing that due to many lacking official identity documents, the real figure is likely much higher.<\/p>\n

Field reports and available evidence clearly show that with rising poverty and social inequality in recent years, the number of working children in Iran is increasing. A major red flag is the declining age of these children: evaluations by the State Welfare Organisation in 2016 and 2017 indicated that about 60% of working children were between 10 and 14 years old, a figure that rose to 71% by 2020.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, ILNA news agency acknowledged in 2023 that at least 48.7% of working children had dropped out of school, with many engaged in dangerous, unregulated jobs such as scavenging and working in brick kilns.<\/p>\n

In addition, state institutions often attempt to deny the existence of child labour or blame it on immigrants and foreign nationals\u2014claims repeatedly refuted by experts. Hassan Mousavi Chelak, president of the Iranian Association of Social Workers, has explicitly stated that the majority of child labourers are Iranian, and that such deflections are merely efforts to cover up domestic poverty.<\/p>\n

This evidence points to the fact that Iran\u2019s policies of denial, blame-shifting, and inaction not only perpetuate violations of children\u2019s rights but also deepen the crisis. Rather than tackling the root of the problem, the responsible institutions focus only on cosmetic management and reducing official statistics\u2014an act which itself constitutes a serious violation of children\u2019s rights under international conventions, many of which Iran has signed.<\/p>\n

Therefore, it is imperative that the international community, child rights organisations, and global institutions take more active steps and apply effective pressure on the Islamic Republic to be held accountable and take meaningful action to resolve this crisis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Child Labour: An Open Wound on Society<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond economic exploitation, child labourers are highly vulnerable to the worst forms of abuse, including:
\n\u2022 Trafficking and the buying and selling of children for sexual exploitation or forced labour
\n\u2022 Use by mafia networks, including drug trafficking
\n\u2022 Involvement in street trades such as begging, peddling, window cleaning, and flower selling
\n\u2022 Scavenging and waste separation in unsanitary and hazardous conditions
\n\u2022 Child portering (kolbari) in border regions, which endangers their lives
\n\u2022 Work in informal and underground workshops such as brick kilns, felt production, and manufacturing of shoes and garments<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Day to Awaken<\/strong><\/p>\n

The World Day Against Child Labour is not just a day of remembrance\u2014it is an opportunity for advocacy, awareness, and the awakening of collective responsibility.<\/p>\n

Only through broad-based resolve and active participation in transforming the current system can meaningful progress be made against this persistent issue.<\/p>\n

Children deserve childhood\u2014not labour. A society where children are forced to work is a sick society\u2014sick with poverty, inequality, and injustice.<\/p>\n

The World Day Against Child Labour is a call to heal this longstanding wound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 June 2025 News category: Children Breathing in Confinement: 12 June has been designated by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as the World Day Against Child Labour—a reminder to global conscience, a call to raise public awareness, and a collective push to end a painful phenomenon that continues to deprive millions of children of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3yHPi-1CB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6239,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions\/6239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bciran.org\/wplocationen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}