Iran MP Claims Tehran Municipality Hires Children

An Iranian lawmaker said Tehran Municipality continues to work with contractors who abuse child laborers.

Mohammad-Hassan Asafari told ILNA news agency, “These contractors exploit child laborers for their own financial gain as they pay children less and do not insure them,” adding that the Iranian lawmakers have repeatedly warned municipality officials in this regard, but of no avail.

From a legal perspective, the municipality is required to sue those private contractors who violate the law by employing children for such difficult jobs as waste collection and cleaning streets, the lawmaker pointed out.

Iran’s Parliament Research Center released a report in August highlighting an alarming rise in the number of working children.

The report indicated that 15% of the child population is engaged in labor activities. At least 10% of working children do not have the opportunity to attend school, depriving them of essential educational opportunities.

In September, Bahram Zonoubi Tabar, the head of the Labor Coordination Council in Fars Province, warned that Iranian children are being forced out of school and into the workplace as families struggle to make ends meet in the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

Tabar said, “With the commencement of the school year, numerous workers are grappling with difficulties enrolling their children,” adding that the country’s 100% increase in commodity prices within a year, compared to the annual wage increments of around 20% for workers, has made conditions unbearable for large numbers of Iranian families.

While the exact number of working children in Iran remains undisclosed, the Ministry of Labor indicated that in 2017, out of nine million Iranian children, 499,000 were considered “active,” signifying that nearly half a million children in the country were either engaged in labor or searching for work.