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Trafficking Women in Iran

Oct 13, 2000

TEHRAN (AFP)

 Iran has arrested 21 smugglers since the beginning of the Iranian year in March as regional trafficking in human beings has risen sharply, the head of Iran's Interpol bureau said.

"This figure is unprecedented in the past 20 years," said Arsalan Monaem, quoted by the state IRNA news agency late Thursday. "This has become one of the most profitable professions."

Monaem added that eight people belonging to a smuggling ring "from a neighbouring country" were recently arrested in the southern city of Shiraz and were deported to their nation of origin. He did not name the country.

The Jame-Jam newspaper last month reported it had uncovered a smuggling network based in Turkey that it said was providing women, many of them underage, with fake passports and transporting them to European and Persian Gulf countries, where they were often forced into prostitution.

The conservative paper said its reporter had discovered at least one 16-year-old girl who had no visa to leave the country but had been smuggled to Turkey and sold to a 58-year-old European national for 20,000 dollars.