Iran Issues - 2022

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Disputes - international

Iran-Afghanistan: Iran protests Afghanistan's limiting flow of dammed Helmand River tributaries during drought; Afghan and Iranian commissioners have discussed boundary monument densification and resurvey

Iran-Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-Russia: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified a Caspian seabed delimitation treaty in 2018 based on equidistance, while Iran continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of the sea

Iran-Iraq: Iraq's lack of a maritime boundary with Iran prompts jurisdiction disputes beyond the mouth of the Shatt al Arab in the Persian Gulf

Iran-UAE: Iran and UAE dispute Tunb Islands and Abu Musa Island, which are occupied by Iran; the dispute was rehashed at the September 2021 UN General Assembly meeting; Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corp opened an airport on Greater Tunb in February 2022

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 2.6 million undocumented Afghans, 780,000 Afghan refugee card holders, 20,000 Iraqi refugee card holders (2020)

stateless persons: 34 (mid-year 2021)

Trafficking in persons

current situation: Iran is a presumed source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor; Iranian and Afghan boys and girls are forced into prostitution domestically; Iranian women are subjected to sex trafficking in Iran, Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, and Europe; Azerbaijani women and children are also sexually exploited in Iran; Afghan migrants and refugees and Pakistani men and women are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Iran; NGO reports indicate that criminal organizations play a significant role in human trafficking in Iran

tier rating: Tier 3 — Iran does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; therefore, Iran remained in Tier 3; the government continued a policy of recruiting and using child soldiers, government officials perpetrated sex trafficking of adults and children and continued trafficking both in Iran and overseas; the government continued to force or coerce children and adults to fight for Iranian-led militias operating in Syria and provided financial support to militias fighting in armed conflicts in the region using child soldiers; authorities failed to identify and protect trafficking victims among vulnerable populations; law enforcement treated trafficking victims as criminals, facing severe punishment or death for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit (2020)

Illicit drugs

significant transit and destination country for opiates and cannabis products mainly from Afghanistan; produces and consumes methamphetamine and traffics it to  international markets; one of the primary transshipment routes for Southwest Asian heroin to Europe

NOTE: The information regarding Iran on this page is re-published from the 2022 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Iran 2022 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Iran 2022 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.