Planet Iran

May 11, 2010

A joint research conducted between two independent organizations in Iran, the Center for Cooperative Women’s Affairs and the Committee for the Defense of Victims of Violence indicates the skyrocketing trend of kidnapping and trafficking Iranian women and girls as slaves, to neighboring countries such as the UAE, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as Europe and Asian countries.

The result of this research which has been published (in Persian) indicates that the traffickers and slave traders lure girls and young women to places such as parks and other recreation areas in the guise of friendship or courtship, promising these young women who are generally in search of a better life, an easy way out of the country, jobs with decent salaries and generally a higher standard of living.

Elham Aaraam-Nia, sociologist reports: “The human traffickers usually promise to help these women in exchange for the use of the women’s passports to export goods.” That way having deceived the young women with these promises and a small sum of money, they get them onto planes or cars and legally transport them over the borders and out of Iran.

Many of the girls are runaways who leave home due to abject pressures on the home front. In 2005 informal statistics taken by women’s groups inside Iran indicated 300,000 runaway girls in Iran.

This form of exploitation however does not confine itself to girls and women but extends to boys and children as well.

Other than sex slavery and forced prostitution, a large number of these young women are bought and sold  for their organs. Reports indicate that traffickers looking to sell women in the international market target girls between 13 and 17, although some of the girls are reported to be as young as 8 and 10. The younger girls are often forced to work as maids until slave traders deem them old enough to work out of clubs, motels, or brothels.

It appears that though up to now many of these trafficking groups have been identified, they have not been stopped by the Iranian government and seemingly they are allowed to freely cross the borders without being stopped. There have been other reports over the years that suggest that various officials of the Iranian regime are not only involved but profit from the trafficking of women.

The head of Iran’s Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.