Shahindokht Molavardi, Iranian Vice President in Women & Family Affairs, admitted on July 11th that one third of homeless people sleeping in the streets in Iran are women. To minimize the aspect of this catastrophe she said the number of people sleeping in the streets across the country are 15,000 and 5,000 of whom are homeless women.
A Tehran municipality official had said last year that in Tehran alone there were 15,000 homeless sleeping in the streets, adding, “Nearly 2,000 of these homeless people sleeping in the streets are women.” This official also referred to the lowering age of women sleeping in the streets, saying their average is as low as 32.
Fateme Daneshvar, head of the Tehran Municipality Social Committee said in June, “The number of pregnant women and children seen amongst those sleeping in the streets in Tehran is one the rise.”
Another regime official by the name of Reza Jagiri said in an interview with the Fars news agency affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards:
“Many of the homeless people sleeping in the streets are drug addicts… in comparison to the past three years the average age of homeless women has decreased. For example, if in 2011 most of the women sleeping in the streets were above 45 years of age, today this average age has lowered to 32. Of course we also have homeless girls who are mostly addicted to drugs.”
It is worth noting that other regime officials have provided contradicting statistics in this regard. For example, Hafezi, head of the Health & and Environment Commission in the so-called Tehran City Council said more than 3,000 women are sleeping in the streets in Tehran alone. According to Jahangiri, another official in the Tehran municipality, the average age of homeless people sleeping in the streets has decreased to 17 and 18. He described drug addiction as the reason behind the rise of homeless women sleeping in the streets.
Poverty and unemployment are two of the main reasons behind this horrific phenomenon in Iran, all caused by the mullahs’ regime.