Reduction of 100 Billion Tomans in the Budget for Social Damage Control in Iran

The newspaper Etemad reported a reduction of "100 billion tomans" in the proposed budget line by the government for controlling and reducing social damages in the year 97. This news was published in the newspaper's issue on Thursday (December 23). What is referred to as social damages in Iran mainly includes addiction, poverty, slum dwelling, school dropout, divorce, and increased crime rates. The reporter of Etemad wrote that while after the second meeting of Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Minister of Interior, with the Leader of the Islamic Republic, 400 billion tomans were allocated for controlling social damages, this figure has decreased to 300 billion tomans in the proposed budget for the year 97. Mr. Rahmani Fazli, shortly after his fifth meeting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei regarding social damages, announced the allocation of a separate budget line of 300 billion tomans for controlling social damages in the 97 budget bill. He stated on Wednesday in a gathering of members of the National Social Council that since Mr. Khamenei emphasized slum dwelling as a priority for controlling social damages, "200 billion tomans of development budget should also be added to this figure to combat slum dwelling." According to Etemad, the Minister of Interior was not questioned about the budget reduction for combating social damages and did not provide any explanation regarding it. The report noted that this reduction occurred while "special credits for supporting NGOs and preventive actions to protect at-risk populations should also be included in the dedicated budget." As Etemad reported, the reduction in the budget for combating social damages occurred at a time when on Wednesday, Moayed Alavian, the head of the Hepatitis Network of Iran, reported that 186,000 people in the country are infected with Hepatitis C. Alavian warned that "about 70% of these patients are unidentified and can be active carriers of the disease like unidentified HIV patients." The Etemad reporter added that if "special credits for prevention and free treatment and eradication of this viral disease in the country are not allocated... we will soon witness the coexistence of AIDS and Hepatitis C on a large scale." The newspaper identified the highest number of Hepatitis C patients in Iran as "injecting drug users, prisoners, and sexual partners of these individuals" and reported a "20 to 40 percent prevalence of Hepatitis C and a 15 to 25 percent prevalence of HIV in this population." Banafsheh Samgheis, the Etemad reporter, wrote that "assuming that the prevalence of 20 to 25 percent following the pattern of injecting addiction remains stable in the statistics of drug users in the country, from the population of 2.8 million drug users in Iran, 560,000 to 700,000 have injecting addiction, and if they share needles, 100,000 to 150,000 of them are at risk of contracting AIDS and 150,000 to 280,000 are at risk of contracting Hepatitis C." Last year, the Minister of Interior announced that the Leader of the Islamic Republic stated in a meeting that the Islamic Republic is "20 years" behind in reducing and addressing social damages. He reported that Mr. Khamenei has specified priorities for reducing social damages. According to Mr. Rahmani Fazli, the priorities set by the Leader of the Islamic Republic include "combating drug trafficking and addressing the addiction problem," "slum dwelling," "divorce," "combating delinquency," and "issues related to specific and critical cases."