Iran's Interior Ministry Says Most Child Laborers in the Country Are Afghan Nationals

"Our definitive decision is to collect street children and beggars," the Iranian interior minister added. Referring to the problems in collecting these children, he added: "Most street children are illegal Afghan immigrants and some of these children are minors, and collecting and keeping them is a difficult task for the Welfare Administration."

According to Wahidi, the responsibility for collecting and keeping these children lies with the municipalities and welfare agencies. However, he acknowledged that the Welfare Organization is not able to do this on its own and has asked all municipalities to cooperate in this regard.

Previously, the head of Iran's National Migration Organization had also announced that Afghan street children would be collected and returned to their country.

Although there are no accurate statistics on the number of Afghan street children in Iran so far. However, according to a report by the Young Journalists Club, there are only about 70,000 street children in Tehran alone, 80% of whom are foreigners.