On the Occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor
“They stole my childhood!!
When, at the crossroads, instead of singing songs,
I sang the sorrow of bread…”
The World Day Against Child Labor (June 12) serves as a global reminder of our collective responsibility toward the silent cries of millions of children worldwide whose lives are intertwined not with dreams, but with scavenging, exhaustion, humiliation, and fear. In Iran, under the rule of the mullahs, millions of children are victims of systemic poverty, lawlessness, and blatant exploitation, victims not only of familial hardships but also of a deliberate structure of denial, injustice, and profiteering by the regime.
This report provides a documented and structured portrayal of the child labor crisis in Iran, grounded in firsthand accounts, credible statistical data, legal analysis, and direct examination of violated commitments. Its aim is to raise awareness and mobilize public opinion and human rights institutions to halt this chronic cycle of exploitation.
1. Scope of the Crisis: Official Statistics and Structural Concealment
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), “child labor” is defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their human potential, and their fundamental rights, while harming their physical, mental, and social development.
The official report of Iran’s Parliamentary Research Center (July 2023) identifies approximately 15% of the country’s children—equivalent to 1.6 to 2 million—as child laborers. However, according to a report by Tasnim News Agency (affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) on October 5, 2017, Nahid Tajeddine, then a member of parliament from Isfahan, estimated the number of child laborers in Iran to be between 3 and 7 million, emphasizing that “due to the lack of identity registration for most child laborers, accurate statistics cannot be provided.”
Despite efforts by regime institutions to downplay the figures, field reports indicate that the number is significantly higher, particularly in impoverished and marginalized areas. With the relentless rise in poverty in recent years, the actual number of child laborers in Iran is likely far greater than reported.
2. Types of Work Assigned to Children
The phenomenon of child labor in Iran spans a wide and diverse range of activities, often involving hazardous, illegal, and unregulated work:
- Street work: Hawking, flower selling, sock vending, car washing, begging
- Underground workshops: Glassmaking, metalworking, brickmaking, carpet weaving, bag and shoe production
- Waste picking: One of the most dangerous and prevalent forms of child labor
- Domestic work: Childcare, elderly care, cooking
- Cross-border labor (Koolbari): Predominantly in Kurdish regions
- Drug trafficking and involvement in criminal networks: Numerous documented cases
3. Age and Gender Composition of Child Laborers
According to data from the Ministry of Labor:
- Age groups:
- 1% between 3 and 7 years
- 45% between 8 and 13 years
- 54% between 14 and 17 years
- Gender:
- 84% boys
- 16% girls
However, in hidden and domestic jobs such as cleaning or household work, the proportion of girls is higher, and their vulnerability is greater.
4. Physical, Psychological, Social, and Gender-Based Harm
- Physical and Health Impacts:
- Permanent burns from working with molten materials (e.g., glassmaking)
- Chronic conditions such as joint pain, spinal disc issues, respiratory infections
- Severe malnutrition (21% of child laborers suffer from malnutrition, per reports)
- Lack of access to vaccinations or basic healthcare
- Psychological and Identity-Related Harm:
- Chronic mistrust, depression, anxiety
- Loss of personal and social identity
- Psychological trauma from humiliation, verbal abuse, and forced labor
- Social and Ethical Harm:
- Economic and sexual exploitation
- Drug addiction to cope with work conditions
- School dropout (over 48% are out of school)
- Unwilling involvement in criminal activities
- Gender-Based Violence:
According to 2024 statistics, over 60% of female street child laborers have experienced sexual abuse.
5. Documented Narratives of Tangible Suffering
“The Heavy Toll of Small Statures” – Shargh Newspaper (2023)
Children in glassmaking workshops in Shahr-e Rey suffer severe burns from molten materials: Hossein, 10 years old, and Ahmad, 9 years old, with scarred faces and wounded hands, uneducated and without identity…
One child with severe burns said: “It spills on your skin like jam… then all you can say is ‘ow, ow, ouch, ouch…’”
These narratives reveal children systematically subjected to physical torture from dangerous work, without oversight, insurance, or wages sufficient even for a single warm meal.
- Hadi (10 years old): “We don’t go to school… we don’t have time… we don’t have birth certificates either… we get 100,000 tomans a week.”
- Masoud (16 years old): “Some kids’ eyes have gone blind… the younger ones work even harder.”
- Mahshid (14 years old): A street sock vendor facing sexual harassment.
- Zahra (8 years old): A flower seller in the metro, chased by municipal officers.
- Kolsum (10 years old): Suffers from constant nausea from working in metro spaces.
6. Root Cause: Structural and Regime-Produced Poverty
Poverty is the primary driver of the child labor cycle. However, this poverty is not a natural phenomenon but a product of flawed economic policies, structural discrimination, and the dismantling of support systems.
According to the Parliamentary Research Center, over 80% of Iran’s population lives below the poverty line. Many families, especially in marginalized and rural areas, are forced to send their children to work to survive. This leads to school dropouts, depriving children of skill development and perpetuating unemployment and poverty into adulthood. This creates a vicious cycle: poverty, child labor, poverty, repeated across generations.
Poverty is the outcome of a repressive economic system. The regime not only fails to address poverty but actively contributes to its persistence through policies such as privatization, labor market destabilization, the elimination of social support, and the slashing of budgets for public education and healthcare.
7. The Regime’s Role: Denial, Erasure, and Legal Exploitation
Iran’s Labor Law (Article 79) prohibits the employment of children under 15, but this provision is routinely ignored. Workshops with fewer than 10 employees, as per amendments in 2003, are exempt from this law, paving the way for the legal exploitation of children in thousands of “family-run” and “informal” workshops.
While Iran has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), it has evaded implementing its critical provisions through a “Sharia reservation.” This reservation, declared upon Iran’s accession to the CRC in 1994, is registered in international and domestic records:
Link to UN document: https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&clang=_en#EndDec
Text of Iran’s reservation: “If the text of the Convention is or becomes incompatible with the domestic laws and Islamic standards at any time or in any case, the Government of the Islamic Republic shall not abide by it.”
This reservation affects key CRC articles, including:
- Article 32: Prohibition of economic exploitation
- Article 19: Prohibition of violence
- Article 28: Right to education
- Article 36: Prohibition of exploitation
- Article 37: Prohibition of torture and inhumane treatment
8. Deflection and Erasing the Face of Poverty from Cities
Instead of addressing the root causes, the regime approaches the issue from the perspective of “urban beautification,” focusing on removing child laborers from city streets.
Hasani, a social analyst, stated on August 9, 2023: “Officials don’t see child porters… because they’re not at intersections, ‘uglifying’ the city. They view child laborers as urban furniture, not suffering human beings.”
9. The Gap Between Law and Implementation: Admissions by Regime Media
ILNA, a state-affiliated news agency, has published reports that implicitly acknowledge violations of child labor laws:
- “At least 48.7% of child laborers are out of school.” (ILNA – December 13, 2023)
- “Child laborers in brick kilns, waste picking, and workshops operate in highly dangerous and unregulated conditions.” (ILNA – April 30, 2024)
Notably, even the regime’s official sources occasionally admit to this undeniable reality, yet no tangible action is observed from responsible institutions, highlighting a glaring gap between law and enforcement.
Hassan Mousavi Chelek, president of Iran’s Social Workers Association, stated: “The majority of our child laborers are Iranians… sometimes officials’ statements are meant to deflect, claiming we have no poverty in Iran and these child laborers are not Iranian. But that’s not the reality.” (ILNA – August 9, 2023)
Such candid remarks reveal that the regime, through denial and erasure, shirks its responsibility toward child laborers, marginalizing the crisis. This approach not only hinders reform but also perpetuates blatant violations of children’s rights.
Conclusion and Human Rights Call to Action
The phenomenon of child labor in Iran is not the result of natural poverty or weak oversight; it is the product of a deliberate structure of oppression and disenfranchisement, in which the ruling regime is not only complicit but also a direct beneficiary.
On the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor, we demand the following:
- Revocation of Iran’s reservation to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and full implementation of its provisions.
- Deployment of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child to Iran.
- International oversight of small workshops and the informal economy.
- Support for non-governmental organizations to provide education, healthcare, and identity registration for child laborers.
- Pressure to eliminate exemptions for workshops with fewer than 10 employees from labor law regulations.
“We found childhood, which should have laughed on swings, on a garbage cart…”
