At present, the Iranian regime’s media outlets have been reporting that the economic and living conditions of disabled people in Iran are worsening. With no disparity between those people living in big cities and those who live in villages, all are being equally affected.

A few years ago, many families caring for disabled relatives complained about their difficulties to buy fish and were forced to remove it from their food baskets. The situation is so dire that they cannot even afford red meat, chicken, rice, or fruit.

More so than healthy people, it is often vital for people with disabilities to have access to and consume suitable and nutritious food as part of their treatment for their conditions.

It is also obvious that these people must have access to medicine, rehabilitation, sanitary equipment, etc.

Thanks to the country’s severe poverty levels, none of these necessities can be easily accessed, and the regime’s current budget for these people is worsening the situation.

The price of disability aids, such as wheelchairs or hearing aids, has increased several times since last year, and to add insult to injury the regime has decided to remove the budget for the Protection of the Rights of the Disabled from next year’s budget bill.

With this shocking revelation, the regime’s media has been forced to say that “now we can boldly say that we are facing a perfect example of budget discrimination against people with disabilities.”

Just over three years ago, in Iran’s annual budget law, it was approved that a percentage of the income from the cost of mobile text messages and driving offenses would be spent on helping disabled citizens.

While it was said that this amount was supposed to be provided from the people’s pockets until today not a single rial has been spent for the benefit of the disabled.

Due to the lack of rule of law and its implementation, no regime official has given a clear and convincing answer in this regard as to where the thousands of billions of rials provided from the people’s pockets have been spent.

Some of the regime’s media have reported that this amount is approximately around 600 trillion rials from the increase in SMS fees alone.

By removing the budget for the disabled, the regime is conveying the message to disabled people that they are not important and effective people in society, so they should not complain about this discrimination.

Considering the absolute poverty line in Iran, which is about 150 million rials ($335), and due to various discriminations at the hands of the regime, many of the disabled people in society are heads of their families and are unemployed, and as a result of a lack of income, they and their relatives often suffer from malnutrition and develop many medical problems.

How can a disabled person continue to live with this amount of inflation and economic pressure? In the long run, these pressures will only cause or worsen mental and psychological damage for these people.

Currently, around 1.2 million people with disabilities are looking for a job, and it must be clearly said that the regime’s welfare organization has not taken any specialized and efficient action to support them in gaining employment and empowering them.

In another crushing blow, according to the regime’s statistics, the monthly cost of sanitary supplies for a disabled person is 38 million rials, which the regime has now decided to withdraw their support for and instead only give each person 3 million rials to fund these supplies.