July 7, 2002

An 18-year-old girl who has fled human traffickers, revealed that a large number of girls are being kept in the basement of a house. They are there for sale or to be taken to countries like Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai for sexual exploitation.

In a statement on July1, the Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran published a comprehensive report on the clerical regime's mafia network who are involved in the business of trafficking of young women and girls. According to this report, the central office of the network which operates under the guise of a trading company in Tehran, is located in downtown Tehran. Its precise address is Apt. No. 25, Fifth Floor, Borj-e Kaveh, on Enqelab street.

The man heading the company and running the network with the backing of senior officials in the regime is Massoud Tajik. He has intimate ties with several senior figures in the regime. In cooperation with the regime's security agencies, Tajik hand-picks homeless and runaway girls picked up by the security forces and takes them to special centers under the pretext of providing care for them. After forging false travel documents, they are smuggled to neighboring countries for sexual exploitation.