- Updated October 24, 2023
Years Listed
Each shaded box corresponds to a year the country appeared on the CSPA list and what types of waivers it received, if any.
Iran first appeared on the CSPA list in 2018 and has appeared every year since for a total of six years. The U.S. president has never waived CSPA prohibitions against the provision of U.S. arms sales and military assistance to Iran. However, Iran has never been eligible to receive any CSPA-relevant arms sales or U.S. military assistance since the law took effect. As a result, no U.S. arms sales or military assistance to Iran have been waived or prohibited due to the CSPA.
According to the U.S. State Department, Iranian government forces – including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian Basij Resistance Force (Basij) – as well as armed groups that the Iranian government has led or supported – including the Fatemiyoun Brigade, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade, and Houthis – have used and recruited child soldiers. For several years, IRGC and Basij forces have reportedly recruited and used children, often through force or coercion, to fight in Iranian-led militias in Syria, including the Fatemiyoun Brigade. According to a statement made by an IRGC official, the IRGC may have recruited students from 3,700 student bases in Iran. The IRGC has also reportedly established multiple recruiting and training centers in Syria, the largest of which reportedly houses 250 children between the ages of 13 and 18. Additionally, the Basij forces recruited and used children, some as young as 12 years old, as security and anti-riot forces in Iran during 2022 and early 2023. The Iranian government also reportedly provided funding to Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade, which used children in combat in Iraq in 2016, and continues to fund Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which recruit, train, and use child soldiers in combat in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Since it first appeared on the CSPA list in 2018, the Iranian government has made no effort to prevent its forces from recruiting and using child soldiers, nor has it ever reported efforts to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate child soldiers or to investigate, prosecute, or convict officials complicit in child soldier offenses. As of March 2023, there continued to be a government policy or pattern of recruiting and using child soldiers and a lack of accountability for officials, including Iran’s Minister of Education, who in 2019 promoted the recruitment and use of child soldiers for combat in Iraq.
For more information, see the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report and Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
