World

Iranian regime and its appalling violation of children’s rights

November 08, 2017
An Iranian boy plays with a weapon at a war exhibition in Tehran. — Reuters
An Iranian boy plays with a weapon at a war exhibition in Tehran. — Reuters

By Reza Shafiee

Children are the most vulnerable members of society and international institutions have taken many measures to enhance their security and welfare. In fact, Nov. 20 is being celebrated as the United Nations’ Universal Children’s Day.

However, Iranian regime is one of the most heinous violators of children’s rights. Since the time it seized power in 1979, it has victimized children by denying them their right to decent education in modern schools and has indoctrinated them with radical ideas in mosques to prepare them for wars.

During the Iraq-Iraq war, Khomeini’s regime used hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren as cannon fodder. It has been reported that most young recruits received between one to three months of military training before they were being sent to the war front.

There were reports of nine-year-old children being used in human wave attacks, while others were asked to run over minefields to clear the path. In fact, many child soldiers captured by Iraqis during the Iraq-Iran war were in their early teens.

Iranian child soldiers were sent into the battlefield with plastic keys around their necks. These keys symbolized their so-called permission to enter paradise. Sent ahead of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops and armored vehicles, these children were used as ‘mine-clearers’. Most of them were blown up as they charged across the minefields, thereby clearing the way for the IRGC.

According to some estimates about the Iran-Iraq War, which killed around a million people between 1980 and 1988, the paramilitary Basij Force recruited thousands of children to clear minefields.

Although there are no reliable records about the actual number of children casualties in the war, a statement made in 1982 by former president of the regime Ali Akbar Rafsanjani stated that Iran’s armed forces had been supplemented by 400,000 volunteers.

According to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross at least 10 percent of Iranian prisoners of war were underage children. According to many Iranian military officers captured by Iraqis during the war, nine out of 10 Iranian child soldiers were killed in the battlefields.

Juvenile executions

Iranian regime is also known for executing juvenile offenders and such executions are increasing every year. Presenting her report to the UN earlier this year, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Situation in Iran Asma Jahangir, expressed grave concern over the “highest number of executions” of juvenile offenders totaling 435 in the first six months of the year.

“I note that Iran has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which commit the country to protecting and respecting children’s right to life,” the Special Rapporteur noted. “These Conventions also unequivocally forbid the passing and carrying out of the death penalty on anyone below 18 years of age,” she added.

The sense of outrage is echoed by Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa: “It is absolutely appalling that two decades after it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran continues to display such a chilling disregard for children’s rights.”

Trafficking of children

The rise in the number of street children, working as beggars and street vendors, has raised concerns among international organizations. The US State Department’s annual report on human trafficking 2017 states: “Street children in Iran are highly vulnerable to trafficking.

Organized criminal groups kidnap, purchase and force Iranian and migrant children, especially Afghan refugee children, to work as beggars and street vendors in cities, including Tehran. These children, who may be as young as three years old, are coerced through physical and sexual abuse and drug addiction”.

Even Iranian officials occasionally admit that children and even babies are being smuggled out of country for sale. Fatemeh Daneshvar, chair of the social committee of Tehran’s City Council, admitted on 8 March 2017 that babies born prematurely to street women are often smuggled to other countries to be sold.

She was also quoted as saying: “Most of these infants are taken abroad and we do not know whether they are sold to organs trafficking gangs, to families or to brothels,” the report added. Daneshvar added: “This gang sells baby girls for a price higher than boys and sends the babies to unknown destinations”. — Al Arabiya English


November 08, 2017
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