Sale of Children and Infants in Cyberspace amid Legal Vacuum and Rising Poverty

Following the expansion of poverty and financial hardship, in recent years the illegal buying and selling of infants and children on media platforms and in cyberspace has increased. These discussions intensified following the discovery of numerous Telegram and Instagram channels that were openly soliciting customers for infants and children intended to be sold by traffickers. The CEO of the Nur Sepid harm reduction institute attributes the main causes of increased infant sales in the country to the negligence of support organizations in providing necessary sexual education to addicted women, homeless women, and those in poor guardianship situations, the difficulty of conditions for legal abortion, and these women’s lack of access to voluntary contraceptive tools.

According to Hrana News Agency, citing RECLNA, openly addicted women in Tehran, whose numbers are estimated at around one thousand based on police and prosecutorial assessments, do not have favorable living conditions. Most of them live in dangerous, contaminated shelters alongside addicted men, and many of them become pregnant unwillingly.

Likewise, there are many homeless or poorly supervised women in Tehran who, due to poverty, livelihood difficulties, and sometimes pressure from their own damaged families, are forced to resort to sex work. Since many of them lack necessary sexual education or access to voluntary contraceptive tools, they too unwillingly become mothers.

Now, if these children are to grow up in the same shelters of addicts or damaged environments in the south and outskirts of Tehran, certainly their lives will be unpleasant as well. The mothers of these unwanted children, who themselves have experienced living in such environments, know this better than anyone, and therefore prefer to sell their newborns to infant trafficking mafia gangs from birth, both to earn income and so that their children have better futures than themselves. These are gangs that, with the expansion of social networks in the country, have become quite active in cyberspace these days.

Weakness in Abortion Law as a Factor in Unwanted Births

Among all this, undoubtedly one of the most important factors leading to the birth of these unwanted children and their sale in cyberspace is that many addicted and homeless women lack sexual education, do not have access to contraceptive methods, and are unable to have unwanted abortions.

Under such circumstances, many experts in the field of social harms emphasize that if support organizations had properly planned to prevent the birth of such children, these children would never have been born and infant trafficking mafia gangs would no longer be active.

This is a point that Sepideh Alizadeh, CEO of the Nur Sepid harm reduction institute, drew attention to and stated: “We live in a country where safe abortion law is not properly implemented, because as long as an addicted pregnant woman can prove to the authorities that she is in difficulty and cannot care for her child, the fetus becomes too old and the court no longer permits the mother to have an abortion.

This addiction specialist continued to emphasize: “Essentially, addicted and homeless women who become pregnant unwillingly are not empowered women who can quickly obtain abortion orders, and many of them by the time they receive an abortion order, their fetus is older than 18 weeks and legal abortion is no longer possible.”

Homeless Women Lack Access to Contraceptive Tools

Among all this, however, perhaps a solution that might be even more effective than expediting the legal permission process for abortion in preventing unwanted births among addicted and homeless women is teaching contraceptive methods to these women, though of course the necessary tools in this regard must simultaneously be provided to them. This is something that the country’s support organizations completely ignore, and this very issue has perpetuated the vicious cycle of infant sales in Iran.

Alizadeh explained this matter by saying: “There are many homeless women who, despite not wanting to have children, have had several children because they lacked the necessary education, each of whom is in an orphanage or at the home of one of their relatives. The main reason these children are born is that there is usually no way for homeless women to use IUD devices or other contraceptive tools.

This addiction specialist, noting that some homeless women have resorted to sex work out of necessity, emphasized: “Support organizations should definitely provide contraceptive tools free of charge to these women so that they too do not unwillingly become mothers, because these women’s children are either sold by mafia gangs or forced to spend their childhood in highly damaging environments.”

Voluntary Contraception is Not Common Among Homeless Women

Yet unfortunately, not only is there no support in our country for such homeless women to prevent pregnancy, but also most experts at the country’s health centers have themselves not been trained to provide the necessary education to these women and treat them in a demeaning manner accompanied by judgment.

Alizadeh, while referring to this issue, stated: “I once sent a homeless sex worker woman to a health center to receive an IUD, and unfortunately, because the experts at that center had not received the necessary training, they treated her in a demeaning manner. Later, after holding educational sessions for this woman, they advised her that it would be better to use temporary methods instead of a permanent contraceptive device so that if she wanted, she could have children again in the future.

The CEO of the Nur Sepid harm reduction institute continued: “Those experts at that center didn’t know that this woman already has four children, each of whom she has placed in a home or orphanage, and she essentially has no need for more children. Examples like this show that voluntary contraception is not common among homeless women and the possibility of unwanted births for many of these women still exists.”

Migrants and Marginalized People Also Sell Their Children

Based on the statements of this addiction specialist, it can be said that now in our country addicted women, homeless women, and poorly supervised women, some of whom resort to sex work out of necessity and some become pregnant while living in contaminated shelters alongside addicted men, face difficult conditions for legal abortion or voluntary contraception. This very issue results in the birth of many unwanted children.

Under such circumstances, when these women cannot keep their unwanted children, naturally both to earn income and to secure their children’s futures, they either hand them over to infant trafficking mafia gangs or sell them to families who have relatively good financial situations and can raise their infants in more appropriate conditions.

Alizadeh did mention in his remarks that it is not only addicted and homeless women who sell their children, and some migrant and marginalized families facing severe livelihood problems are sometimes forced to sell their children.

He told an anecdote in this regard: “I know an Afghan family that when faced with a problem paying their rent, were forced to sell their fourth child to an Iranian family, and that Iranian family, instead of giving that money as charity to that Afghan family, bought their child and sold him to a wealthier Iranian family.”

Perpetuation of Social Harm Cycle with Unwanted Births Among Addicted Women

Another important point is that addicted and homeless women or other women who sell their children out of poverty and necessity do not necessarily sell their children to families, and in most cases, it is these mafia gangs that buy children from addicted women.

Many of these children have no fate other than being sold to begging, theft, and child labor gangs, and all of this causes the failure to prevent unwanted births among addicted and homeless women and the lack of support from relevant organizations for these women to actually perpetuate the vicious cycle of social harms and the transmission of that from one generation to the next.

Alizadeh, in this regard, expressed his remarks by recounting a story: “I know a woman who, when support organizations and charities should have helped her, no one came to her aid. This woman, after spending 30 years homeless, had 7 children, each of whom also had children, and now the number of her family members is 30, all of whom are severely damaged individuals. This is while if we had supported that woman from the beginning or prevented her from becoming pregnant, we would not now be witnessing 30 damaged individuals being added to society.

This addiction specialist stated at the end: “Examples like this woman show that if we do not prevent social harms from the very beginning, including unwanted births among addicted and homeless women, these harms will intensify day by day and continue from generation to generation. But unfortunately, our country’s support organizations pay no attention to this issue.”

Source: Hrana