Iran's IRGC exploits women through sex trafficking, uses children to fund proxy wars, report finds

In addition to financially benefiting from human trafficking, a JCFA report claimed that the IRGC systematically traffics migrants, refugees, and children to sustain proxy wars in the region.

Iranian women trafficked for sex, undocumented migrants, children, and refugees are being exploited by the Islamic Republic, and specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to finance and support its proxy wars across the region, according to a new analysis published last week by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

Ella Rosenberg, a senior research fellow at the JCFA and a member of the Dvorah Forum, said Iran’s legal framework allows the regime to project an image of compliance with international anti-trafficking regulations while relying on flawed legislation that falls short of international standards and fails to adequately protect victims.

She noted specifically that the Islamic Republic conflates human trafficking with migrant smuggling, and the regime has consistently refused to ratify the 2000 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (the Palermo Protocol).

IRGC directly benefiting from sex trafficking

Beyond failing to protect victims, Rosenberg assessed that the IRGC directly benefits from human trafficking. She noted that the IRGC uses the sex trafficking sector, often facilitated by the regime through temporary marriages, as a major source of income.

Rosenberg described Iran as a source, transit, and destination country for the sex trafficking of women and girls, citing widespread poverty, systemic corruption, and economic mismanagement as contributing factors.

She argued that Article 1041 of Iran’s Civil Code, which permits girls to marry at 13 and younger girls to marry with parental permission and court approval, has helped normalize the sexual exploitation of minors. Rosenberg also linked the practice of nikah mut’ah, a temporary marriage contract agreed upon for a predetermined period, to the exploitation of women and girls and their vulnerability to organized trafficking networks.

Trafficking networks move victims within Iran and across its borders into neighboring countries, including Iraq, with the alleged support of the IRGC, according to Rosenberg. She argued that the scale of cross-border sex trafficking could not be sustained without the corps’ complicity, given its role in border control and the intelligence apparatus’s oversight of internal security checkpoints and airports.

Adding more weight to her analysis, Human rights groups, including IHR Monitor and HRANA, have documented allegations that IRGC commanders accepted bribes to facilitate the passage of trafficking victims. Rosenberg added that the IRGC profits directly from the exploitation of Iranian women by taxing the commercial sex trade.

IRGC exploiting Afghan, Pakistani refugees

In addition to financially benefiting from human trafficking, the JCFA report claimed that the IRGC’s Quds Force and the Basij systematically traffic undocumented migrants, refugees, and children to “sustain their proxy wars across the Middle East.”

The IRGC exploits vulnerable populations, particularly Afghan and Pakistani refugees, to recruit fighters through deception, financial coercion, and threats of deportation, she argued. Individuals harvested from these communities are coerced into joining proxy militias like the Fatemiyoun and the Zainabiyoun brigades, for deployment in foreign countries like Iraq.

Additionally, in violation of international law, the Basij systematically recruits and coerces Iranian children as young as 12 into military indoctrination and combat support roles. This was argued to be a severe form of human trafficking, as the recruitment exploits children’s vulnerability to coerce them into hazardous, involuntary servitude in military environments. Though JCFA warns of the abuse of children aged 12 and up, The Jerusalem Post has previously reported on the death of an 11-year-old Basij member who was killed at a checkpoint in Iran.

Rather than directly profiting from the trafficking of vulnerable individuals into the IRGC, Rosenberg put that the financial gain can be categorized as cost avoidance rather than revenue. She argued that rather than deploying trained members of the IRGC, which the regime would have to pay and has invested in, the revolutionary guards can deploy underpaid or unpaid vulnerable groups who are deemed disposable because of their lack of funded training.

Such deployments were estimated to save the Islamic Republic billions of dollars in military expenditure, freeing funds to be redirected into the IRGC’s domestic corporate monopolies and regional terror financing networks.

Again, Iran’s “tax” system also allows it to benefit from migrants transiting from Pakistan and Afghanistan hoping to reach Europe through Iran and Turkey.

The migrants are also routinely subjected to debt bondage, extortion, and forced labor in Iran’s informal agricultural and construction sectors to pay off exorbitant smuggling fees by criminal networks who pay protection money to the IRGC. This alone is estimated to generate billions of dollars for Iran’s shadow economy. creates a multi-billion-dollar shadow economy.

Focus on Iran's nuclear program may distract from IRGC human trafficking 

Rosenberg shared that Iran was able to continue to exploit these systems as sanctions from the EU and US have primarily focused on Tehran’s nuclear proliferation, ballistic missile development, support for regional terrorism, and suppression of domestic dissent. Failing to also sanction the IRGC and the front companies it uses for human trafficking continues to provide Tehran a lifeline.

Given that the funds raised by human trafficking are often liquid, Rosenberg also alerted to the fact that it was hard for international systems to monitor how much wealth Iran is accumulating through these streams. Individuals involved in facilitating or covering for the regime-backed smuggling networks are therefore allowed to continue to travel, utilize regional banks, and manage front companies without fear of asset freezes or international arrest warrants.

To prevent Iran from continuing to profit from human trafficking, Rosenberg advised that the US Treasury Department should utilize the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act specifically to designate IRGC border commanders, Basij recruitment officers, and complicit Iranian law enforcement officials for their roles in labor and sex trafficking.

She added that the European Commission must also leverage the Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD6) to require European financial institutions to monitor illicit financial flows generated by Iranian trafficking networks aggressively.