Based on the reports and video clips disseminated in the social media, labor child girls who are forced to work in the streets to earn meager amounts of money, are abused physically and sexually by municipality agents.
One of the labor child girls said, “Me and my two brothers were doing our homework and at the same time selling walnuts when municipal agents came and caught my two brothers. I told them, ‘what do you want to do with them?’ Then they caught me, too… They took off my older brother’s clothes and started beating him by sticks. My younger brother started crying. Simultaneously, they told me to polish their shoes, I said I won’t. Then they rubbed black polish on my face.”
A social worker said the labor child girls are also sexually abused in addition to being brutalized. “Two of the labor child girls who work on the intersection, were forced into a car by municipal agents. One of the agents told one of the girls to unbutton her clothes. This girl even told us that when she was taken to the police station, she was separated from other kids and forced to take off her clothes.”
Another one of the labor child girls talked about sexual abuse of her friend by municipal agents. She said, “One day, when I saw Sara, I asked her, ‘Why are you upset?’ She said municipal agents caught me and mistreated me… They pulled my scarf, and touched me. When I screamed, he stepped away. But when I went to the office of the municipality and told my story, they did not believe me. They said I was making up the story so that they would let me go.”
Based on the reports of social experts, the population of labor children amounts to 7 million. (The state-run Tasnim news agency, September 27, 2017)
