Linking Poverty & Domestic Violence to
Human Trafficking in Iran
By Yer Yang
10/23/07
http://www.irandokht.com/editorial/index4.php?area=pro§ionID=12&editorialID=761
Human trafficking is an issue that not enough
people are educated about. One of the explanations for this
lack of awareness is the covertness of trafficking which makes
it difficult to obtain numbers on victims as well as keeping
tabs on traffickers. As a result, only a fraction of trafficking
cases are recorded, the actual scale of this issue cannot be
accurately represented with numbers and other data.
Although human trafficking is a worldwide
epidemic, Iran seems to be a country that has been experiencing
the highest increases. As stated in Katherine Toliao's article,
“there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of
teenage girls in prostitution…” While specifying
the exact numbers of trafficked individuals as well as the dates
in which the changes are being compared would be helpful, what
the given percentage does is reaffirm that human trafficking,
more specifically sex trafficking, is increasing exponentially
in Iran. What needs to be investigated further seems to be the
causes.
As mentioned in almost all of the articles
I have read on sex trafficking in Iran, one of the major issues
seems to be drug addiction. It may not be the root cause of
poverty (which leads to human trafficking), but many families
seem to be struggling economically because of it. Without any
other means of paying for drugs or clearing debts, parents end
up selling their daughters into prostitution or forced marriages.
Stories of other women are that they must sexually exploit themselves
to provide for their children. The high unemployment rate of
women in Iran, which is 43%, makes me curious as to why this
number is so high.
Additionally, many of the trafficked women
are runaways. Although there are some shelters provided, the
corruption of the officials present in them does not help the
situation. One question that should be asked however is “why
are these women running away?” Some reasons are domestic
violence, the drug abuse of parents and restrictions of fundamentalism.
Despite the provided explanations for the high numbers of trafficked
individuals, the fact of the matter is that there are bigger
forces influencing this increasing trend. The inability to acquire
accurate data however hinders the possibilities of exploring
this issue even more, leaving more and more victims to suffer.
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