Iran Issues - 2024

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-Kuwait: dispute over undemarcated maritime border and al Durra offshore gas field in the Arabian/Persian Gulf; talks continued as of 2023; in 2022, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia signed a joint agreement to develop the field despite objections from Iran, which described the deal as illegal

Iran-UAE: Iran and UAE dispute the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa islands, which are occupied by Iran; Iran has conducted military drills on and around the disputed islands

Caspian Sea (Maritime Boundary): Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified the Caspian seabed delimitation treaties based on equidistance, while Iran continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of the sea

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 500,000 undocumented Afghans, 750,000 Afghan refugee card holders, 12,000 Iraqi refugee card holders (2022)

stateless persons: 34 (mid-year 2021)

Trafficking in persons

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 on Tier 3; the government took some steps that may prevent trafficking of some vulnerable populations, including providing access to schools, basic services, and temporary immigration relief for some Afghan children and adult refugees or migrants who registered for the government’s headcount initiative; however, the government continued a policy or pattern of employing or recruiting child soldiers and facilitating human trafficking; officials continued to perpetrate and condone trafficking crimes with impunity, both in Iran and overseas; the government did not report law enforcement efforts to address trafficking, and it brought spurious charges against LGBTQI+ activists; officials did not report investigating, prosecuting, or convicting officials complicit in the recruiting and use of child soldiers coerced to fight for Iranian-led militias in Syria; the government forced or coerced children to join Iranian security and anti-riot forces to suppress ongoing political protests, and coerced former Afghan Special Forces members to fight for Iranian-backed militia in Yemen; authorities failed to identify and protect trafficking victims among vulnerable populations and continued to deport or detain Afghan adults and children without screening for trafficking indicators (2023)

human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Iran, and Iranians are exploited abroad; the continuing decline of the Iranian economy has significantly exacerbated human trafficking, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and migrants, LGBTQI+ persons, women, and children; Iranian and some foreign women and girls, as well as some men and LGBTQI+ persons, are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking in Iran; although commercial sex is illegal, the government reportedly condones and sometimes directly facilitates commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of adults and children, which are endemic throughout the country; Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi, Bahraini, and Lebanese women are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking in large urban centers; Iranian women, boys, and girls are vulnerable to sex trafficking in Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates; Iranian and Afghan refugee and migrant children, orphans, and homeless children are highly vulnerable to forced labor in Iran; criminal groups reportedly play a significant role in human trafficking in Iran, including kidnapping or purchasing Iranian and migrant—especially Afghan—children for forced labor and sexual exploitation; foreign workers, including Pakistani migrants and Afghans, are highly vulnerable to abuse and forced labor in Iran; Iranian authorities continue to force and coerce Afghans, including children, as well as Pakistani migrants, Syrian nationals, and Iranian children, into armed groups to fight in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen or serve in Iran in paramilitary forces (2023)

Illicit drugs

significant transit and destination country for opiates and cannabis products mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan; produces and consumes methamphetamine and traffics it to  international markets; one of the primary transshipment routes for Southwest Asian heroin to Europe; opium and cannabis most widely used drugs domestically along with increase in crystal methamphetamine