TEHRAN – Following the implementation of a national campaign to organize and support children engaged in child labour in Tehran, more than 300 children were identified and sent back to their home country along with their families, an official with the Welfare Organization has said.

Two months into the implementation of the campaign, the findings show that some 85 percent of the identified children were unauthorized migrants, IRNA quoted Mohammad Nasiri as saying.

The campaign aims to convey the message that child labour is a criminal offence, and that children are not responsible for supporting their families financially. Parents who are not really in need are duty-bound to be careful about the exploitation of their children in any form of work, he noted.

The official went on to say that a large proportion of these foreign refugee families were needy and vulnerable. So, a new support program is being developed in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to address child labour, which will be revealed on the World Day against Child Labour, June 12.

Under the initiative, families that withdraw their children from street labour and send them back to school would be eligible for conditional aid.

Over 6 million Afghan nationals residing in Iran

According to the head of the National Organization for Migration, Nader Yar-Ahmadi, a total of 6.1 million authorized and unauthorized Afghan nationals are living in the country.

Iran is host to one of the largest and most protracted refugee populations in the world, the majority of whom are Afghan refugees.

Some 2.1 million of the immigrants are documented, the information of the two million others has been registered, and the rest have illegally entered the country, ISNA quoted Yar-Ahmadi as saying.

Over the past Iranian calendar year (March 2024 – March 2025), more than one million undocumented nationals were deported to their own country, of whom forty percent returned voluntarily, the official noted.

Women and children make up the majority of unauthorized foreign nationals, who may even be working in the country and pose no threat. However, due to high costs (of food, transportation, fuel, and so on) imposed by refugees on the country and inadequate international aid, Iran wants them to return to their own home country, he added.

In a recent meeting between Afghanistan’s Acting Minister of Refugees and Repatriation and the Director General for South Asia at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, the Taliban called for joint meetings with Tehran to address the situation of Afghan migrants.

According to reports on Saturday, Afghanistan’s Acting Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Mawlawi Abdul Kabir met with Mohammad Reza Bahrami and his accompanying delegation in Kabul. 

During the meeting, Abdul Kabir highlighted the deep historical ties between the two nations and expressed appreciation for Iran’s decades-long hospitality toward Afghan migrants. He also called for continued Islamic compassion in Iran’s treatment of these migrants.

The Taliban official noted that Kabul is implementing plans for the voluntary return of Afghan refugees and revealed that 46 residential townships are currently under construction to accommodate returnees.

In response, Bahrami acknowledged the presence of several million Afghan nationals in Iran, many of whom lack legal documentation. He emphasized the need for greater cooperation between the two countries to address ongoing challenges and extended an official invitation to the acting minister to visit Tehran.

The Iranian diplomat also welcomed Afghanistan’s housing initiative, describing it as a positive step toward facilitating the voluntary return of migrants to their homeland.

MT/MG