One third of Khorasan street kids are drug addicts

According to Mohammad Reza Kazem Zadeh, the head of the local health and social security department, many of these children are under eighteen. They work as street vendors and contact their families in other cities only once a year on average.

Shahrzadnews:As a result of poverty, the war with Iraq and population displacement, many of the children growing up in Iran’s major cities have been denied a safe family and social environment. They end up living on the streets or in shantytowns, and many become drug addicts.

The northern province of Khorasan, where there are many Afghan refugees, has been particularly badly hit. According to Mohammad Reza Kazem Zadeh, the head of the local health and social security department, many of these children are under eighteen. They work as street vendors and contact their families in other cities only once a year on average. The province has just one medical centre, which last year offered refuge to 66 street kids. In the first nine months of this year 47 youngsters were admitted.

Many of the Afghan children in the province do not even have a proper birth certificate and consequently may not enrol at local schools. Iran has recently begun a process of sending thousands of Afghan refugees home.

Source: http://www.shahrzadnews.org/index.php?page=2&articleId=2704