Dying for a day’s pay: Afghan workers in Iran recount injury, abuse and torture
I might never have grasped the full depth of the suffering of Afghan migrant workers had I not spoken directly to them and experienced two days in a detention camp in Iran.
As a journalist, my deportation from Iran — and my forced return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the very regime I had opposed — at least gave me one thing: the chance to meet many Afghan workers in those camps. If unemployment was their only concern when they left Afghanistan for Iran, these people now have nothing: no fair wages, no dignity, no safety, no job security, and not even the hope of survival.
Among the deported were women separated from their families, men arrested while working at brick kilns, construction sites, tailoring and shoemaking firms; children rounded up from street corners, where they sold flowers or collected trash. They all ended up at the camp where they spoke of hardships that many might find hard to believe yet for them was daily life, a life coloured by fear and death in Iran.
Death in the depths of a well: The story of Dawood
Shahin Shahr, Isfahan – Fall 2023
Dawood died at a depth of 65 metres inside a water well, suffocating after the air transfer bag ruptured. He was a 40-year-old man originally from Kandahar who migrated to Isfahan after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. He had spent years digging wells in Iran to support his wife and two children — an 18-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son.
His daughter, Marzieh, tells Zan Times through tearful eyes, “My father knew the job was dangerous, but he had no other choice. Iranian employers refused to provide safety equipment for Afghan workers. When his body was brought out, they even refused to pay the 1.2 billion toman (about US$20,000) compensation. They said that because he didn’t have a residency permit, the law doesn’t protect him.”
Dawood’s death is an example of the systemic exploitation of Afghan labourers. Iranian employers often prefer to hire Afghans because they face no penalties and aren’t obligated to pay compensation if an accident occurs. In the end, Dawood’s family received only 100 million tomans, which is barely enough to cover his burial expenses.
Beaten to death: The tragic fate of Sayed Agha
Karaj – Summer 2021
Sayed Agha had moved from Kabul to Iran to support his family. In the summer of 2021, the 50-year-old labourer started working at an orchard in Karaj. Six months later, he was dead after a dispute over two months of unpaid wages.
“Father used to say the orchard owner not only refused to pay him but insulted and mistreated him every day,” says Faizullah, Sayed Agha’s son. “One day he called me and said the employer and his son had beaten him, and he was now in a clinic.”
Due to severe head injuries and heavy bleeding, Sayed Agha suffered a stroke and died a week later at home. His family believes his death was caused by the beating. “They told my father, ‘You’re Afghan, you have no documents or proof of your wages,’” Faizullah says angrily. “They didn’t even help us cover the cost of transporting his body back to Afghanistan.”
Workplace injuries and denial of insurance
Mashhad – Winter 2022
Khalil was 36 when a cutting machine severed a tendon in his right hand. The labourer from Badghis had been working at a stone-cutting factory in Mashhad. “I was bleeding heavily, but my employer wouldn’t even take me to the hospital,” he says. “I paid seven million tomans for treatment. If I were Iranian, I would’ve paid only a third of that.”
The injury ended Khalil’s ability to do his skilled job forcing him to turn to selling items on the street and working as an assistant in tailor shops. His income dropped drastically as he struggles to provide even the bare minimum for his family. Khalil says hard and dangerous labour has ruined the lives of many Afghan workers in Iran. “No Afghan labourer has insurance,” he says. “If something happens, you’re on your own.”
According to the latest figures from Iran’s Ministry of Interior, six million Afghans live in the country. For the majority of this large population, their main source of income is hard, low-paid labour without any legal or union protection.
Falling from heights and the silence of the law
Shiraz and Tehran – Summer 2023
Morteza welds atop 20-metre-high steel building frames in Shiraz. “We don’t have safety belts or harnesses,” says the 17-year-old from Herat. “Last year, I fell from six metres and broke my leg, but my employer didn’t even give me a painkiller.”
Another Afghan labourer, 28-year-old Mohibullah, injured a spinal disc when he fell from scaffolding on the second floor of a building in Tehran in August 2023. The accident left the migrant worker from Logar unemployed for six months while his employer refused to pay the final nine million tomans of his wages. “They told me, ‘You’re Afghan, go file a complaint!’” he says. “But I knew if I did, the police would demand my documents before listening to my complaint — and that would only create more trouble for me.”
Unpaid wages and bounced cheques
Mashhad and Tehran – Winter 2023
Mohammad Rahman, a building painter in Mashhad, received only 40 million of the 160 million tomans owed to him after working for two months on a four-story construction project. “At first, the employer said the house was built for sale and that he’d pay me once it was sold,” Rahman explains. “When I threatened to file a complaint, he said, ‘You’re an undocumented Afghan worker — go ahead, complain wherever you want, it won’t get you anywhere.’” Like Mohibullah, Rahman did not report his employer to the authorities, convinced that his complaint would be ignored.
Sometimes, instead of directly refusing payment, Iranian employers issue postdated cheques to Afghan workers. These cheques, which are typically dated one to six months ahead, are often not honoured.
Murad Ali experienced this firsthand last summer. The clothing producer in Tehran received 170 million toman in cheques from a clothing seller. “When the cheques was due, I went to the bank to collect the money,” he tells Zan Times. “The bank clerk said the account was empty. I called the person who gave me the cheques, but he casually replied, ‘I don’t have any money to give you right now.’ I said, ‘Then return the coats I gave you.’ He replied that he had already sold them.”
State pressure, deportation, and exclusion
Since the beginning of 2024, pressure on Afghan migrants in Iran has intensified. Restrictions on their movement, bans on legal employment, denial of education, and even the inability to buy bread have turned Iran into a prison for undocumented Afghans. “If the police catch us, we’re immediately deported to Afghanistan,” explains Mohammad Rahman. “We’re forced to work under extremely harsh conditions for meagre wages, and even when our employers refuse to pay us, we have no choice but to grit our teeth and endure it.”
Iran’s labour and social security laws are aimed at attacking not helping its Afghan population, which are exploited by an economic system that profits from their vulnerability and precarious legal status.
Until Iranian laws and the country’s economic system recognize Afghan workers as equal human beings — or until conditions in Afghanistan allow for their safe return — many more Dawoods, Sayed Aghas, and Khalils will continue to be beaten, exploited, and killed with impunity.
The names in this article have been changed for security reasons.
