Iran is not only the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism, its revolutionary Islamic government also leads the pack when it comes to trafficking boys and girls for sexual exploitation, the U.S. State Department has said in its 2015 “Trafficking in Persons Report.”
“Iran is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor,” the State Department said in its report. “Organized groups reportedly subject Iranian women, boys, and girls to sex trafficking in Iran, as well as in the United Arab Emirates and Europe,” the report read.
By classifying Iran as a “Tier 3” government—the worst possible ranking when it comes to human trafficking—the Islamic Republic falls under a category of countries “whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so,” the report explains. In belonging to the Tier 3 classification, the tyrannical regime in Tehran is joined by dictatorial states such as North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and South Sudan.
And trafficking generally—and child sex trafficking in particular—have only gotten worse under the “moderate” president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, who came into office in 2013.
The report states:
In 2013, traffickers forced Iranian women and girls into prostitution in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. From 2009-2015, there was a reported increase in the transport of girls from and through Iran en route to the Gulf where organized groups sexually exploited or forced them into marriages.
Most children are coerced through either “physical and sexual abuse” or “drug addiction,” the State Department found.
But instead of doing their due diligence to stop sex trafficking in Iran, Tehran authorities instead reportedly “punish sex trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking, such as adultery and prostitution.”
The Ayatollah’s government continues to show no signs that it is making any “discernible efforts” to “combat human trafficking,” the report adds, concluding that Tehran continues to refuse to sign a UN anti-trafficking treaty designed to “Prevent Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.”