A senior Iranian judiciary official has warned that waste-recycling factories owned by municipal contractors have been employing children in an 'organized' manner.

Mohammad Fathi, director-general of the judiciary's Office of Women and Family Affairs, said on June 22 that municipal contractors had been 'forcing children to work long hours in completely harmful conditions' and called on the contractors to improve monitoring of worksites.

The warning came after another official, Mehdi Aghrarian, the head of the Legal and Supervision Commission of the Tehran city council, called for an end to the practice.

'Garbage collection is very difficult and children and adolescents should not be used under any circumstances,' he said.

According to the website IranKargar, which covers labor news in Iran, about 14,000 garbage collectors are working in Tehran, one-third of whom are children. The waste trade in Iran is estimated to be worth about $1.5 billion annually.

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Republished with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Washington DC 20036