Increasing number of child laborers in Iran
According to the latest report from the Center for Statistics and Strategic Information of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, the number of child laborers in Iran has increased rapidly.
According to the report, which was published on the official website of this government institution, in 2017, about 499,000 children between the ages of 10 and 17 in the country were either employed (410,000 children) or looking for work.
This figure represents an increase of 6 percent and 9.6 percent compared to 2016 and 2015, respectively.
According to this report, more than 336,000 male children and 74,000 female children were working in 2017.
In fact, nearly 18 percent of all child laborers in Iran are girls, with nearly half of them working in the industrial sector.
The report adds that according to Iranian law, the employment of children under the age of 15 is prohibited, and children between the ages of 15 and 18 can also be recruited into the labor market under certain conditions.
Among boys aged 10 to 17, most of them are attracted to agricultural work, fishing, forestry, industrial production, and construction work.
Of course, 184 girls were involved in construction work and 143 boys were involved in mining. Child labor by girls in construction and child labor by boys in mining is considered “hazardous and strictly prohibited” under international labor laws.
Of course, statistics from the Ministry of Labor show that the number of active child boys and girls in the two aforementioned fields decreased by about three to four times between 2015 and 2017, but employment in other sectors is increasing.
On the other hand, the report says that the number of street children accepted by the country's Welfare Organization in 2017 was about 5,152, which is a decrease of more than 44 percent compared to 2016.
According to this report, 1.5 percent of all Iranian children aged 6 to 19 are illiterate, and 10 percent of them have dropped out of school.
The number of girls who have dropped out of school is slightly higher than the number of boys, accounting for 53.6 percent of all children who have dropped out of school.
In total, more than 1.68 million children in Iran have dropped out of school, and 251,000 children are completely illiterate.
The number of children dropping out of school has also increased steadily over the three years from 2015 to 2017.
Source: Radio Farda
