Abolish child labour! End the persecution of campaigners in Iran


By Iranian refugees

The United Nations’ International Labour Organisation (ILO) has declared 12 June as World Day Against Child Labour. Globally, it is estimated that 168 million children are forced into work. But in many countries, such as Iran, it is difficult to get accurate figures.

The right-wing Islamic regime in Iran is well known as having huge numbers of Iranian children working, even though the government denies it. They claim most of the children working in Iran are Afghan immigrants, but everywhere you go you see evidence of millions of Iranian children labouring, mainly working in factories, clambering over dangerous rubbish heaps of packing and recycling trash. Many also are involved in agriculture, shoe polishing, street peddling, domestic work, and child prostitution.

A dire economic situation in Iran, compounded by the effects of US-led international sanctions, has affected the lives of everyone. Redundancies and factory closures are impoverishing families and driving more and more children into working early.

Children in Iran have very few rights anyway. Sexual relations with young people are legal from age 13 and female children can be married off at nine. The age at which young people can be executed has been raised to 18 but all that means is that they are kept in prison until they reach execution age!

Organisations such as ILO have condemned the government and its laws that ignore children’s lives. The Iranian regime persecutes anybody who wants to do something about child labour.

Behnam Ebrahimzade is one of them, he was a member of a children’s NGO in Tehran where he was supporting immigrant and Iranian children forced to work. Imprisoned in 2010 he has continuously been under physical and psychological torture, with severe effects on his health, while Behnam’s only child is undergoing treatment for leukaemia. We call for his release from prison and for the release of all campaigners against child labour.

The Iranian capitalists and their regime profit from child labour, as it creates a huge reservoir of cheap labour. It is a central element in the capitalist system in Iran.

The work of many NGOs and individual campaigners is heroic and draws attention to the terrible abuse of children but child labour will not disappear until capitalism itself is abolished.