Runaway women to be housed in rehab centres

“In the past year safe houses took in over five hundred young runaway women, 90% of whom were later returned to their families. Most are between twenty and thirty and have vulnerable backgrounds,” said Mr Fareed

Shahrzad News: Iran’s social and healthcare organisation SHO has decided to set up its own centres, tasked with rehabilitating young runaway women and returning them to their families. It admitted that other government-run social care bodies had failed to save many endangered women.

Habib Massodi Fareed, a senior official at SHO, told the ISNA news agency that in future the police and social care organisations would refer runaway women to the magistrates’ courts. These would in turn refer them to one of the thirty-one new health centres, which would provide shelter for the girls and pass them back to their families after a period of rehabilitation.

“In the past year safe houses took in over five hundred young runaway women, 90% of whom were later returned to their families. Most are between twenty and thirty and have vulnerable backgrounds,” said Mr Fareed. He added that the maximum period set aside for rehabilitation was six months. The goal was to either help girls leaving the centres to find work, or to enrol them in high schools.

According to Mr Fareed, the SHO has insufficient resources to support these young women. The 5 billion tomans allocated to it annually has to fund other projects as well.

Source: Shahrzad News