The women’s ward at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad has effectively become an exile camp for female inmates—an environment marred by neglect, suffering, and the complete disregard of human rights. Prisoners are subjected to deplorable sanitary, nutritional, and medical conditions, with fundamental rights routinely violated.
Despite its limited capacity, the prison currently holds at least 3,500 inmates. Many face severe shortages of essential needs such as clean drinking water, proper nutrition, and basic hygiene supplies. Meals are extremely poor in quality and lack nutritional value, leading to a wide range of physical health problems among the incarcerated women.
Critical Sanitation and Healthcare Deficiencies
Female prisoners are forced to bathe in cold water—even during the harsh winters—due to the lack of hot water, resulting in frequent cases of chronic colds, joint pain, and other ailments. Sanitary facilities are severely limited, with only eight functioning toilets available for the entire women’s population. Medical care is virtually non-existent; the prison’s small infirmary is under-resourced and lacks proper medications and trained staff.
Forced Labor and Systematic Exploitation
Forced labor has become routine for women in Vakilabad. Prisoners are compelled to work in prison workshops—such as carpet weaving, tailoring, shoe-making, and cleaning quarantine areas—from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m., with some, particularly in the shoe workshop, working until as late as 10 p.m. Despite the long hours of strenuous labor, the women receive only a meager monthly wage. The profits generated from their work largely benefit the prison administration, especially the prison director. Any refusal to participate in forced labor is met with collective punishment, including the revocation of phone privileges.
Communication and Visitation Restrictions—Especially for Political Prisoners
Female political prisoners are completely denied phone access and are deliberately kept in isolation, under orders from the prison director, to prevent any contact with other inmates. Visitations are extremely limited and short, and in many cases, families’ repeated requests for visitation are ignored.
Systematic Violence and Daily Executions
Physical and psychological abuse are institutionalized in Vakilabad Prison. Women are subjected to daily verbal humiliation, threats, and degrading treatment by prison guards. Executions are routinely carried out inside the prison, adding an atmosphere of constant fear and trauma to an already dire situation.
Drug Trafficking Inside the Prison—With Official Complicity
Reports indicate that narcotics, including methadone, are readily available within the prison. Methadone is distributed through the infirmary, and other drugs, such as nas (a form of smokeless tobacco), are openly sold inside the facility—sometimes for as much as 400,000 toman per package. These transactions reportedly occur with the knowledge and under the supervision of prison officials, including the warden himself.
This report sheds light on just a fraction of the inhumane conditions endured by female prisoners at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. The denial of basic necessities, forced labor, communication bans, mental and physical abuse, and the cruel routine of executions all point to systemic and widespread human rights violations.
The scale and severity of these abuses highlight the urgent need for international human rights organizations to investigate and pressure the Iranian regime to allow independent monitoring and to put an end to these egregious violations of human dignity.
