U.S. Dep't of State, 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report: Iran

IRAN (Tier 3) The Government of Iran does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. Iran remained on Tier 3. Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some minor steps to address trafficking, including participation in an international anti-trafficking conference with regional counterparts. However, during the reporting period, there was a government policy or pattern of employing or recruiting child soldiers and human trafficking.

Media reports alleged officials continued to perpetrate and condone trafficking crimes with impunity, both in Iran and abroad, and officials did not report law enforcement efforts to address the crime. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of traffickers, undercutting the government’s efforts to hold sex and labor traffickers criminally accountable. As in previous reporting periods, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recruited and used child soldiers; the government was complicit in non-state armed groups’ forcible recruitment and use of child soldiers, including the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Syria. The government has never reported efforts to proactively identify or protect child soldiers.

The government lacked victim identification and referral procedures, failed to identify and protect trafficking victims, and due to inadequate screening for trafficking indicators among Afghan adults and children, the government did not take effective measures to prevent the inappropriate penalization of potential victims solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: Cease the unlawful recruitment or use of child soldiers by government forces and paramilitary groups. Cease coordination with and support to non-state armed groups recruiting or using child soldiers. Ensure victims are not inappropriately penalized solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked, including for commercial sex or immigration violations.

Amend the 2004 law to bring the definition of trafficking in line with international law. Cease targeting of non-traffickers through spurious, politically motivated trafficking charges. Investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers – particularly complicit government officials – and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, involving significant prison terms, as appropriate. Hold complicit officials criminally accountable, including officials complicit in the recruitment or use of child soldiers and forcible conscription of Afghan migrants.

Implement nationwide victim identification and referral procedures to proactively identify trafficking victims, particularly among vulnerable populations such as persons in commercial sex, children associated with armed groups, homeless children, and undocumented migrants. Offer specialized protection services to victims of all forms of trafficking, including shelter, medical and psycho-social care, and legal assistance. Allow for the registration and functional operation of civil society and international organizations to combat trafficking and to help provide essential protection services to victims. Increase transparency of anti-trafficking policies and activities.

Accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. Screen any North Korean workers for signs of trafficking and refer them to appropriate services, in a manner consistent with obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2397.

PROSECUTION

The government did not report anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts, and officials continued to perpetrate trafficking crimes with impunity, including the forcible recruitment and use of children and adults in armed conflict in the region. Iranian law did not criminalize all forms of trafficking. A 2004 law criminalized trafficking in persons by means of threat or use of force, coercion, abuse of power, or abuse of a victim’s position of vulnerability for purposes of “prostitution,” slavery, or forced marriage. Inconsistent with the definition of trafficking under international law, the law required movement to constitute a trafficking crime and required a demonstration of force, fraud, or coercion in child sex trafficking cases.

The law did not encompass all forms of labor trafficking. The prescribed penalty under this law included up to 10 years’ imprisonment if the trafficking crime involved an adult victim and a penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if the crime involved a child victim. Both penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with the penalties prescribed for kidnapping. The 2020 Law to Protect Children and Adolescents criminalized buying, selling, and exploiting children; the punishments for such crimes were six months to one year of imprisonment and a fine, which were neither sufficiently stringent nor commensurate with other grave crimes, such as kidnapping.

The labor code criminalized forced labor and debt bondage, but the prescribed penalty of a fine and up to one year of imprisonment was not sufficiently stringent. In 2021, the government reported drafting an amendment to the 2004 anti-trafficking law and submitting the legislation to Parliament for adoption; the amendment reportedly focused on the definition of trafficking and included aggravating punishments for crimes against women and children. In October 2024, Parliament reportedly approved the amendment’s general provisions; however, it remained pending final approvals at the end of the reporting period. The government did not report nor maintain any statistics on investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of traffickers.

The Ministry of Interior (MOI) provided some anti-trafficking training to police in previous reporting periods; however, observers reported there are no specialized anti-trafficking police units nor trainings on victim identification, which hindered effective law enforcement efforts and efforts to identify victims. Officials continued to conflate human trafficking and migrant smuggling, and efforts to address sex and labor trafficking were either nonexistent or not widely publicized. In April 2024, news media reported Iranian authorities arrested 96 individuals for alleged sex trafficking. Women’s legal testimony in courts carried half the weight accorded to men, restricting female trafficking victims’ access to justice.

The government’s politically motivated use of human trafficking charges to target non-traffickers undercut efforts to hold sex and labor traffickers criminally accountable. An international organization reported Iranian officials participated in a workshop with regional counterparts in Tehran on migrant smuggling and human trafficking, allegedly to increase law enforcement cooperation. Media reported Iran and Vietnam signed an MOU on law enforcement cooperation, including on human trafficking in May 2024. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year.

In 2024, media reported the government used children as young as 15 to assemble attack drones, and Iran-affiliated individuals or groups allegedly recruited individuals, including children, to attack Israeli targets in Europe. The government provided material support to the Houthis, a non-state armed group in Yemen that recruited and used child soldiers. Media reported the IRGC recruited child soldiers into militias in Syria and used them to smuggle drugs. Despite such reports, the government has never reported investigating, prosecuting, or convicting officials complicit in the recruitment or use of child soldiers, including into Iranian-led and supported militias in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, nor any action on past allegations of official complicity in sex trafficking.

PROTECTION

The government did not report any victim protection efforts. The government has not reported any efforts to identify trafficking victims or provide protection services for trafficking victims for at least eight years. The government did not report having formal procedures to identify and refer trafficking victims to care. Authorities’ abuse of trafficking victims continued.

The government reportedly punished trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked, such as commercial sex acts and immigration violations. Female victims of sex crimes, including sex trafficking, faced prosecution for adultery, punishable by death. The government continued a pattern of punishing potential adult and child sex trafficking victims for commercial sex acts through imprisonment and maintained laws that allowed the use of lashing and the death penalty for potential victims. Media reported Iranian authorities detained and deported more than 750,000 Afghans in 2024; the government did not report screening this highly vulnerable population for trafficking indicators.

Iranian authorities continued to arrest both documented and undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants in Iran. While in government custody, some detained Afghans – including children and potential trafficking victims – experienced severe physical abuse, lack of food and water for extended periods of time and were denied access to medical care. Iran’s state welfare system did not adequately protect most vulnerable populations in the country, including children and individuals in commercial sex. The government did not report support to or partnership with NGOs that offered limited services to populations vulnerable to trafficking.

Media reported the Iranian state welfare system operated 23 temporary shelters for women, which may have been available to victims of trafficking, and clinics for children, although there were no specific shelters for child victims. Observers claimed local government entities provided funding for victim services; however, the government did not report such funding. Media reported a shelter for child trafficking victims closed due to allegations of staff abusing children. Observers alleged a childcare center for boys in Tehran trained children to join the security forces.

The government has never reported efforts to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate child soldiers. Foreign trafficking victims were unable to access assistance from the welfare system. The government did not provide victims legal alternatives to their removal to countries in which they may have faced hardship or retribution.

PREVENTION

The government maintained inadequate efforts to prevent trafficking. The government’s persistent lack of efforts to prevent official complicity in trafficking crimes further exacerbated trafficking in the country and the region. Observers reported the MOI lacked an anti-trafficking strategy, and the government did not report dedicating resources to address human trafficking. The government did not report efforts to raise awareness of human trafficking.

The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or provide anti-trafficking training to diplomatic personnel. The government did not report efforts to prevent the IRGC or Basij’s recruitment or use of child soldiers. Children of undocumented Afghans and other ethnic minorities continued to have difficulty obtaining legal documentation, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Additionally, a reportedly arbitrary process for validating a child’s citizenship if an Iranian mother was married to a foreign father increased this population’s vulnerability to trafficking.

Iran was not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. TRAFFICKING PROFILE: Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Iran, and traffickers exploit victims from Iran abroad.

Iranian and foreign victims, including children, are exploited in sex trafficking in Iran. Traffickers increasingly recruit potential victims on social media. Although Iranian law prohibits commercial sex, commercial sex and sex trafficking are endemic. The government reportedly condones and, in some cases, directly facilitates sex trafficking throughout the country; media reporting indicates Iranian police, IRGC, Basij, and religious clerics are allegedly involved in or ignore sex trafficking crimes.

Commercial sex reportedly occurs in large urban centers, including the major pilgrimage sites of Qom and Mashhad; reportedly Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi, Bahraini, and Lebanese women in these locations are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking. Observers report some persons increasingly feel pressure to engage in commercial sex due to isolation from family, inability to find employment, and lack of legal protections, on the basis of their sexual orientation or identity, increasing their risk of sex trafficking. “Temporary” or “short-term” marriages – often for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation known as “sigheh” – lasting from one hour to one week – are reportedly widespread in Iran and take place in so-called “chastity houses,” massage parlors, and private homes. These arrangements are reportedly controlled, condoned by the state, and facilitate the sexual exploitation of female and male Iranians, Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian nationals and children.

Child marriage of Iranian and foreign girls is widespread, including in lower-income communities; girls in marriages are subsequently subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, including domestic servitude. Media reports Afghan children in Iran are at risk of sex trafficking (including bacha bazi ). Iranian women, boys, and girls are exploited in sex trafficking abroad, including in Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. Iranian and Afghan children who are homeless are highly vulnerable to forced labor, and experts report the number of child trafficking victims has increased in recent years.

Most child laborers are between 10-15 years old, and the majority are undocumented. Children work in transport, garbage and waste disposal, “dumpster diving,” domestic work, car washes, agriculture, portering, brick kilns, construction, and the carpet industry; children experience abuse and withholding of wages – all indicators of forced labor. Organized gangs in Tehran reportedly operate waste, recycling, and disposal centers and exploit Afghan and Iranian children, locally known as “scavenger children,” in labor trafficking. Criminal groups kidnap or purchase and force Iranian and migrant children to work as beggars and street vendors in cities, including Tehran.

Traffickers routinely subject these children to physical and sexual abuse and drug addiction as a means of coercion. Criminal begging rings maim or seriously injure orphaned children to gain sympathy from those passing on the street. Traffickers, including criminal groups and family members, exploit children, some as young as five years old, in forced begging, forced labor, or sex trafficking. Organized gangs reportedly force children to engage in crimes such as drug trafficking or smuggling of fuel and tobacco.

Undocumented Afghans face increased risk of trafficking due to lack of economic opportunity and legal residency. Afghans not registered as refugees face extreme barriers in access to employment, accommodation, education, and healthcare and often live under the threat of deportation, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Traffickers subject Afghan migrants to forced labor in brick kilns, construction, and agriculture. Reports indicate organized criminal networks in Iran target undocumented Afghans for exploitation through extortion, violence, and kidnapping.

Organized trafficking groups subject Pakistani men and women in low-skilled employment to forced labor using debt-based coercion, restricted movement, non-payment of wages, and physical or sexual abuse. Employers seek adjustable work contracts for registered foreign workers where employers deny workers their benefits and coerce them to work overtime, increasing their vulnerability to forced labor. Media reports rampant exploitation of workers, including indicators of forced labor, in the state-owned energy sector, citing deadly working conditions, wage theft, and violent retaliation by security forces in the event of strikes. Iranian nationals, often with a local accomplice in Seychelles, force Seychellois men with substance use issues to commit criminal offenses, such as distributing or carrying illegal substances across international borders, and commonly use substance addiction to control victims.

A 2024 report found Iranian prison authorities reportedly rent out prisoners for private gain and threaten prisoners with torture in order to increase productivity. North Korean nationals working in Iran may work in exploitative working conditions and display multiple indicators of forced labor. Iranian authorities coerce Afghan, Pakistani, Syrian, and Iranian nationals, including children, into armed groups in the region. Several credible sources widely report the IRGC and Basij coerce Afghan men residing in Iran to fight in the Iranian-led and funded Fatemiyoun Brigade in Syria.

Recruiters target Afghans in prisons and factories with promises of annulled prison sentences, stable residency status in Iran, and financial support. Other reports indicated the IRGC allegedly recruited Afghan migrants, including children, to the Fatemiyoun Brigade. The government also allegedly coerced former Afghan Special Forces members to fight for the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen to keep their legal residency status in the country. In previous reporting periods, IRGC and the Basij recruited and used children for combat in IRGC-led and commanded militias in Syria and as security and anti-riot forces in several domestic cities and provinces; reporting was not available to confirm if these practices were ongoing.

A 2024 report noted the IRGC facilitates the recruitment and training of Syrian children from Dayr az Zawr at training centers to fight in IRGC and affiliated militias in Syria. The Iranian government provides material support to the Houthis, a non-state armed group in Yemen that recruits and uses child soldiers. On This Page search > < IRAN (Tier 3) PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: PROSECUTION PROTECTION PREVENTION TRAFFICKING PROFILE: Tags Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Human Trafficking Iran Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Reports