In the past few months, state media and senior Iranian regime officials have issued reports and made startling remarks about the “child-trade” crisis in Iran under the mullahs’ regime. This phenomenon is growing at such a rate that hospitals have literally become hubs for such an inhumane trend.

In his remarks Iran’s Health Organization deputy in social affairs referred to children being sold in Tehran’s hospitals, including state-run hospitals managed by the Health Ministry, adding this issue has become a serious concern, according to state-run Tabnak website. “During the past six months we have witnessed an increase in the number of children sold across the country,” this Iranian official said, according to the Arman Daily website.

Shahindokht Molavardi, the Iranian vice president for women and family affairs, made shocking remarks about #children being sold prior to birth. “We don’t have actual statistics of such newborns. However, the numbers have reached such a high figure the news media has reported on this,” she explained. “Economic poverty, cultural poverty, drug addiction, homelessness and children being sent off to early marriages are amongst the elements that can lead women to sell their children,” Molavardi reiterated, according to state-run Asriran website.

More such threats in Iran

Children involved in such an atrocious trade usually become targets for groups of beggars whose members gain more money if they have newborn children in their arms. Furthermore, these newborns are also prepared to be used for begging in the future.

Gangs involved in drug distribution are also seeking to take advantage of such children, using them to sell drugs in different methods. In more disturbing news, human traffickers are known to purchase such children, using their body parts for an even more horrifying and more profitable market.

Selling children for early and forced marriages are another perspective of this dreadful disaster brought upon Iranian children by the mullahs’ regime. At an age when children are in need of care and love, they are forced into marriages and becoming young mothers. On most occasions, these girls are forced to marry much older men, and at times even decades older.

The organized trade of children by drug gangs and human traffickers is also on the rise in Iran. This has enormously devastating impacts on the society, especially from a security perspective, and specifically placing children in grave danger.

Crises such as drug addiction, becoming homeless, prostitution and … all intensify the child-trade crisis. Such a dilemma is especially increasing in high-population areas, city outskirts and other areas where poverty is widespread. In areas near hospitals in southern Tehran, children are sold at the unbelievable price of one to two million rials (around $25 to $50).

The source in Iran

It is quite clear the root of all these crises, including the child-trade catastrophe, are poor economic conditions and poverty the majority of Iran’s population is engulfed in. While the majority of the Iranian people are living in poverty, Iranian regime officials and their close circles are enjoying a lifestyle of lords in their palaces, penthouses, skyscraper apartments and fancy villas. The money for all this comes from the pockets of ordinary Iranians.

Such disastrous conditions and the increasingly worrisome trend of child-trade resembles a major contradiction and a significant divide in Iran’s society. A society in which a very small percentage of people are controlling nearly the entire economy.

The vast majority of Iranians are living in poverty, lacking basic necessities and suffering from various crises brought to life by the mullahs’ regime in the past 38 years. Such disastrous policies have endangered the entire society in Iran.

Originally published in Blasting News