NCRI – According to state news agency Mizan, the Deputy to the Welfare Organization’s Social Affairs have said that “in collaboration with charity institutions, we have been able to organize 1370 street and working children in the past six months.”
In an interview with the Mizan news agency’s Society Group, Habibollah Masoudi Farid has said: “ in collaboration with 17 NGOs, we could identify and organize 1370 working and street children.”
He added: “the NGOs have been responsible for identifying and organizing the children while the Welfare Organization has been supervising the process.”
The Deputy to the Welfare Organization’s Social Affairs pointed out that 400 children have been collected from throughout Tehran since the beginning of the plan to collect street children one month ago, and added: “in collaboration with Welfare Organization we could identify and organize 400 working and street children and refer them to Welfare Organization’s day and night centers.”
Masoudi Farid emphasized that 90 percent of the working and street children have families and added: “according to our studies on the status of working and street children, it was found that 90 percent of them had families and only ten percent of them, mostly among foreign nationals, were unaccompanied children.
He acknowledged that “a significant number of street children in Tehran come from deprived cities and provinces like Sistan and Baluchestan.”
The Deputy to the Welfare Organization’s Social Affairs stressed that “deprived families head to Tehran for beggary as the opportunities to practice beggary in Tehran are available.”
In response to a question on the amount of daily income earned by street and working children, Masoudi Farid said: “according to our studies, the working and street children earn 6 to10 Dollars a day, so we can say that on average they earn between 8 to 9 Dollars a day.”
He also reported on the negotiations between the Welfare Organization and Tehran municipality and pointed out that “in order to organize working and street children collected from throughout Tehran, we need to set up 20 new centers for their maintenance and in this regard we have submitted our request to Tehran municipality to provide us with such places.”
