Family murders, addiction, homeless people, child labor, single mothers are some of what the media and the government have referred to as “traumas” of the people.

Many of these people are not only faced with a crisis on the streets and parks of the cities but also in the so-called reconstruction camps the conditions are so overwhelming for them that they leave these camps after a while and try to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Camps with minimal amenities, long queues and several hours of waiting to go to the toilet, lack of proper and adequate food force drug addicts and cardboard-shelter dwellers to prefer the streets to these camps. This also causes most of the women living in cardboard-shelters to return to the streets after being entrusted to the centers by police or emergency services.

Growing and spreading of social crises among the people has recently been reported by law enforcement as the rate of street violence has increased by 25 percent. (Etemad website, 4 November 2019)

Naturally, an increase in social crises and street violence is the result of extreme poverty of the people and the lowering of their tolerance for the calamities and unsolvable problems and crises that they are facing daily.

Regarding the role of unemployment in the emergence and spread of social crises, the state-run media Resalat wrote:

“Unemployment has now increased crime and prostitution in the country. When there are no jobs in the cities and the villages, people migrate to the metropoles, and because they do not find the right jobs, they end up in dangerous ways and resort to theft, addiction, and prostitution, or when a student sees no future, he or she leaves the university. So, every day we see an increase in divorce, violence against children, street fighting and so on. All of this is because we are faced with a lack of jobs to give people integrity. Now all our young people are confused, no government agencies hire anyone, and if they do, their salaries are not enough for everyday life.”

The spread of these crises among the people is in a situation where the government has no idea of how to ​​cure and resolve these crises, which in turn has caused these crises to spread among the people, especially among the poor.

The spread of addiction among women is such that the media and government circles are speaking about the “feminization of addiction”, and it is increasing day by day. In the current situation, the country’s prisons are full of crises.

Mohammad Mehdi Fathi, a member of the Iranian parliament, said, “In the year 1979, we received about 5,800 prisoners from the Shah’s oppressive regime. We now have 240,000 prisoners.” (Majlis news agency, 5 November 2019)

The population of the country has increased nearly three times since 1979, but according to this lawmaker, the number of prisoners has increased about 30 times.

Another ‘achievement’ of the Iranian Government in spreading crises in the country is a staggering increase in the number of single mothers, which are now three million persons.

Another of these crises is the increase in the population of unidentified and anonymous children, of which about 400,000 are now identified as lacking the least human rights.

While the government is unable to solve these problems and find a solution, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani answered a question about this subject:

Rouhani’s interview with the state television on 30 August 2017, in response to the question, ‘Doctor [Rouhani], you must admit that we are facing a lot of social damage, divorce, unemployment, addiction, working children, these are topics that you fully appreciate, what will the 12th Government do to reduce social harm?’

He responded: “One of the most important issues that our society is concerned about is social harm issues, most importantly addiction. Our people are very worried, and we must do our best.”

What this clearly shows is that the Iranian Government has no interest and is not able to solve the social crisis. It only offers empty words.

The question is, given the proliferation of these crises and while the government cannot find a solution to them, why is the issue of social crisis making its way into the media and why are government experts speaking about them?

The answer is very clear because, in the current situation, these crises have brought the system into a bigger crisis, the political and security crisis, and this is what the authorities fear.

Salman Khodadi, a member of the parliament, said: “Social damages are crossing the red line and we can no longer call them social damages because they sometimes cause security issues and threaten the society”. (Rouydad website, 27 March 2018)