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Refugee and migrant children can be arrested as they move around the towns in which they live. Fourteen-year-old Nader R. On his way to work one morning, Iranian police grabbed him and handcuffed him. Ali Reza, age 16, said he was detained by police in Qom and deported alone after having spent 12 years in Iran with his family. He continued:. Around 6 a. Some of us were beaten. They loaded us onto trucks and drove for a while. Then we got out in the middle of a barren desert at some point.
They brought us some food and then took us to a local police station.
There were some 12 and 13 year olds with us too. At the local police station there were about undocumented Afghans. Kerman Detention Facility was horrible. Accounts of abuse from different parts of Iran were strikingly consistent. Sohail A. When Sohail tried again to get to Iran, he was caught again, but this time in Iranshahr.
And he was beaten again. They beat us a lot by kicking us with their boots and hitting us with their belts. At Iranshahr police station there were about 60 of us stuffed inside one room. They harassed and threatened us there. Detained children described a sense of being at the mercy of the Iranian security forces, who appeared free to inflict abuse with impunity.
United States Department of Justice. The whole first month we were dating, we spent most days together but we managed to have sex only once. In , Khomeini passed a fatwa allowing gender reassignment operations as a cure for "diagnosed transsexuals", allowing for the basis of this practice becoming legal. April 14, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ali Reza, age 16, described his arrest by the police:. They let the other guys go but kept me and beat me. They had problems and wanted to take it out on me for some reason. They took me and two or three other undocumented people. They insulted us the whole way [to the police station]. When we got there they took my mobile from me.
Security forces arrested Khalid, age 17, in the southeastern city of Zahedan shortly after smugglers managed to transport him across the border and into the country. Go back home! Children held in detention facilities also complained of being held with adults and not having enough to eat or drink. After being arrested, Zalmai said he was held first in the police station in the southeastern city of Kerman and then taken to White Stone Detention Facility.
Authorities at the detention facilities require everyone, including unaccompanied children, to pay fees for release from transit detention facilities. Six in our group escaped and the rest were arrested. We spent one night at the detention facility in Kerman and one night in White Stone.
Shahib M. Some said they were physically abused if they refused to work or were seen as not working hard enough. The group was separated, and he and two others were taken to a police station at the border. They had us offload trucks of potatoes, tomatoes, et cetera, to search for drugs and then load them again.
They gave us a few leftovers to eat. If there was no truck, we could sleep. If someone was too tired to work, they beat them to make them get up. I spoke once without permission, and one of the officers told me to get up and squat 80 times for punishment. While many children travel to Iran alone, as described above, others travel with their families and are separated during the deportation process. Such children most often have no clear way to reunite with their families.
In many cases, families are split apart in an instant by deportation, with no opportunity to communicate, challenge the deportation, or, if only certain family members are being sent back, to make the tough decisions about whether to endure separation or be deported together. International law, including the CRC, provides for the right to family life, which is violated when families are arbitrarily separated.
Iranian law criminalizes all sexual relations engaged in outside the traditional bonds of marriage. Individuals convicted of engaging in same-sex conduct are subject to severe punishment, including the death penalty. Individuals convicted of having engaged in same-sex relations may only be punished if they are determined to be mature meaning criminally liable , of sound mind, and willing participants. Iranian law also criminalizes tafkhiz , the rubbing together of thighs or buttocks or other forms of non-penetrative sex between men , which is punishable by lashes for each partner.
The punishment for such conduct is subject to between 31 and 74 lashes. In fact, sexual minorities targeted by security forces in both public and private spaces often face charges related to offenses against public morals or chastity instead of sexual crimes. Since , the Iranian government has implemented several policies designed to deal with the complex realities of sexual orientation and gender identity in Iran today. On their face, some of these policies may appear accommodating. For example, the state legally recognizes transgender Iranians - as long as they agree to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
It also allows gays, transgender males, or men who have sex with men to apply for a "behavioral disorder" exemption from military service if they can establish that they are gay or transgender. But while these policies may accommodate, or even benefit some, they aim ultimately to control and enforce conformity. At times they expose sexual minorities to further harassment, abuse, blackmail, extortion, and torture.
At least some LGBT persons told Human Rights Watch that they were coerced into undergoing ineffective or dangerous treatments as children in an effort to amend their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Families sought the assistance of a variety of health care providers, including family practitioners, gynecologists, neurologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Treatment options ranged from psychological counseling and testing, prescription medication such as hormone therapy, and the recommendation that patients consider sex reassignment surgery. Farrokh, a year-old gay male from Karaj, told Human Rights Watch that his parents took him to a series of psychiatrists and psychologists when he was 17 because they suspected he was gay. When I was years-old my parents took me to a psychiatrist, in part because they suspected I was gay.
I told my psychiatrist I thought I was gay and he told my parents.
It was very unprofessional of him to do this. They started pressuring me. Then they took me to an Islamic psychiatrist who told me I had an illness but that I could get better …. By the time I was 21 they had convinced me that I was, in fact, bisexual. Everyone is bisexual, they said. But we never had sex. After some time we decided to sleep together, but I just got nauseous. So my relationship eventually came to an end.
She thought I was being serious. I had been honest with her about my past, but I believed I could be straight [and she believed me].
The Violations of the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Iranian government to sexual orientation rights: Iranian LGBT persons are located in an official approval of the local community as it is believed to restore the community's sense of Nine months later, as his court date drew near, he left Iran and claimed refugee. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Islamic Republic of Iran face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.
The provision of medical care to children and the right of parents to decide what is best for their children is a complex issue beyond the scope of this submission. This was the first time, many said, when they were exposed to the harsh realities of the outside world, where looking, acting, or feeling different often meant ridicule, harassment, and at times, abuse suffered at the hands of classmates, teachers, and others.
Many interviewees told Human Rights Watch that they were the victims of sexual harassment and abuse at school perpetrated by both classmates and teachers. In primary school, we realize we are different from our peers, and because of this we become the focus of ridicule. It is from this time that we begin to think that there is in fact something wrong with us. The reports suggest that prison authorities may have executed as many as 13 child offenders in , 12 in , four in , seven in and 1 in Human Rights Watch has not been able to independently confirm these numbers to determine whether all those reportedly executed were under 18 years of age at the time of the offense, but has verified several of these cases.
Islamic Penal Code, Iran, art. According to Amnesty International, between and at least six child offenders were executed for rape by Iranian authorities. Intentional murder, which under Iranian law includes cases where the murderer intentionally makes an action that is inherently lethal, even if he does not intend to kill the victim, is considered to be a crime punishable by retribution in kind qesas-e nafs.
While the judiciary is responsible for carrying out the trial and implementing the sentence in these cases, Iranian law treats them as private disputes between two civil parties, where the state facilitates the resolution of the dispute. The names used in this section are pseudonyms. The Iranian rial to dollar conversion rates correspond to rates in One interviewee told Human Rights Watch that he had been charged three times that amount.
Human Rights Watch interview with Ali N. The flip side of the obstacles to education for Afghan children in Iran is frequent child labor. Many parents and children interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that undocumented children, unable to attend school, had worked instead, often at very young ages.