BEHIND THE IRAN HEADLINES Series, April 5, 2024, Alireza Jafarzadeh, NCRI-US Deputy Director
The majority of Iran’s youth are socially and economically oppressed by the mullahs’ regime and face a bleak reality. As Iran’s corruption-riddled economy, plagued by four decades of mismanagement and plunder, continues its nosedive, the future generation is busy trading their organs on the black market. They batter their bodies for a chance at life in a cruel struggle for survival.
In recent years, the trade of body parts and organs has become a lucrative, deadly business in Iran. A shocking report on March 26 by the state-run Tejarat News acknowledged some aspects of this dark trade in Iran.
Tejarat News wrote, “Financial desperation unites buyers and sellers in the grim trade of body parts. Now, even Generation Z has entered this market. Not only those born in the 1980s but also those in the 2000s haggle over pieces of themselves.”
Based on the current dollar exchange rate on the free market, young Iranians auction their future and lives for $6,000 to $8,000.
As the Iranian regime continues to plunder the nation’s natural resources to finance its war, terrorism, and suppression machinery, more Iranians fall into the abyss of poverty with each passing day.
Behzad Nabavi, a former high-ranking official, revealed in 2021 that four institutions, including Setad Ejraie Farman Imam, Khatam al-Anbiya Base, Astan-e Quds, and the Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation, control a staggering 60 percent of the country’s wealth. These entities are directly under the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, ‘s command.
Is it any surprise, then, that the Iranian youth yearn for regime change, actively participating in nationwide uprisings and joining the ranks of the Resistance Units?