The Lion's Pride Volume 11 (Winter 2019) | Page 28

conditions in Iran were very bad. People were poor, the economic
situation was very bad, and I thought that it was not possible to make
things worse, but a few months ago when I went to Iran to visit my
family, the situation in the country was unbelievable to me. People’s
lives had been broken by poverty. The pressure of the economic
situation was so high that all family members had to work to be able to
afford family expenses. Many children were working in the city. This
was a very unfortunate and tragic situation. The number of child laborers
has multiplied from a few years ago. As the Vice-President of the
Association for the Protection of Children’s Rights, Tahereh Pazhuhesh,
reports, “Despite global reduction in the child labor statistics, we see
child labor surge in Iran” (as cited in Iran HRM, 2018). Further, “These
children work as breadwinners, losing their only opportunity of
childhood as they toil along the highways and streets, amidst the smoke
and commotion or in sweatshops. Iranian society is all too familiar with
images of child laborers. Children are frequently seen working as
vendors, cleaning car windscreens, or working on farms and in factories.
Most of them have dropped out of school” (IranHRM ,2018).
Child laborers generally have a family, and when they are gathered by
the municipality units and workers, they move to welfare centers, but
welfare centers do not have the permission of the judiciary to keep these
children, and they are obliged to deliver the children to the families, and
because the families need money, they send the children again to the