Azernews.Az

Some 1.7 million child laborers live in Iran, Mehr news agency quoted Arash Faraz, the secretary general of the higher council of Iranian laborers, as saying.

Faraz said that the figure was announced by the Iranian Statistics Center in the Iranian calendar year 1385 (March 2006-March 2007), but added that the center's report in the year 1389 (March 2010-March 2011) showed that just 6,000 of the child laborers have been organized.

The center has not updated its data during the past eight years, coinciding with the incumbency of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran has not ratified international conventions defining a minimum age for work, but it has set its own rules to prevent child labour.

A child in Iran cannot legally work under the age of 15. However, there is a loophole that is open to exploitation.

Non-governmental organisations say that Iranian law needs to change in order to protect the rights of working children, and that there needs to be a clear legal definition for street children and child labour.

Iran's unemployment rate in Autumn 2012 hit 11.2 percent, down 0.6 percent compared to previous year's Autumn statistics, according to the country's statistics body.

The jobless rate was 11.1 percent in Spring, according to the report.

Some 1 million new jobs have been created in Iran, in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20, 2012.

During the previous year, the nation's working population was 25 million, the report added.

According to Etemad Persian language daily, the administration had pledged to create 2.5 million jobs in the past (calendar) year.

Persons aged 20-24 years are the most unemployed group in Iran with the unemployment rate of 29.8 percent.