Simultaneously with the World Day Against Child Labour (June 13), the Khorasan Razavi Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, in cooperation with the Mashhad Municipality and Welfare Organization, launched a special library for working children.
This library was set up with more than 2,000 titles of books. Games and entertainment cost 120 million Rials for working children in the daily Support-Educational Center for Children and Families “Hamraz” (one of the welfare support centers in the suburbs of Mashhad).
Zerehsaz (Director General of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Khorasan Razavi), said, Most of the center’s activities are book-based. The opening of this library can be the beginning of a movement to develop reading and attention to working children, and these activities should not be limited to occasions.” Haghdadi, Deputy of Social Affairs of the General Department of Welfare, said, “1,000 working children in Mashhad were identified and supported by the Welfare Organization.
Child labor is one of the examples of child abuse. Last year, 3,000 cases of child abuse were reported in the social emergency. In Mashhad and the outskirts due to its special conditions, the problems are doubled. Working children were identified by the social emergency, 137 municipalities, law enforcement, and non-governmental organizations, and we always faced problems in their identification, and many unidentified working children work in underground workshops, warehouses, and the Labor Office is mandated by this law to report accurately.
Mostly labor child and child abuse is perpetrated by families, and the law pays close attention to this issue. The library attracts a large number of working and street children to the daily welfare center, and the presence of books in this center also greatly increases the level of awareness of working and street children.”
Iran’s Labor Law prohibits the employment of children under the age of 15. Children aged 15–18, referred to as “young workers”, are required to undergo regular medical exams by the Ministry of Labor in order to be eligible for partaking in the workforce.
Furthermore, employers are prohibited from assigning youth to “overtime work, shift work, or arduous, harmful or dangerous work”.
However, the Labor Law allows businesses with less than 10 staff members to be exempted from certain provisions of the law, including maximum work hour requirements, overtime pay, and disability benefits. Iran has ratified the International Labor Office (ILO) convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.
