Economic crisis, unemployment, discrimination, and the absence of social support are pushing more people into sex work as a final means of survival.
As Iran’s economy has moved deeper into crisis, sex work is no longer a hidden or shame-laden phenomenon confined to the margins of its cities. It has become one of the clearest signs of the collapse of social protections and the intensification of exploitation within Iran’s crisis-ridden economy.
Benazir, a 36-year-old Afghan migrant woman, is one of thousands whose path into sex work was shaped, step by step, by economic hardship and discrimination.
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, she came to Iran with her mother-in-law. Her husband had been killed in Afghanistan, leaving her with two children and no financial support. To survive, she took jobs in cleaning and domestic services.
Because she was Afghan, Benazir says, she was paid half as much as an Iranian woman. On numerous occasions, she was insulted, humiliated, or dismissed before receiving her wages.
“As migrants, we had no one to support us, and our rights were constantly disregarded here. Cleaning and domestic work were the only jobs available to us.”
Her life changed several years ago when the cleaning company she worked for sent her to a house in Jannatabad, northern Tehran.
She recalls:
“When I arrived, there was a man of around 50 in the house. I felt unsafe from the moment I entered. When I went into his room to clean, I heard the door being locked. That was the first time I was subjected to sexual violence.”
Afterwards, Benazir says, she could not file a complaint, tell the cleaning company, or imagine that anyone would defend her.
“Whatever happened, I would be blamed because I was both a migrant and a woman. Even if someone killed me here, no one would defend me. Our lives are always in danger.”
Some time later, the same man asked her to return once or twice a week, both to clean and to provide sexual services. In return, he offered her a full wage and sometimes gave her food—far more than she had earned through cleaning alone.
By then, her family’s financial situation had become so desperate that she had considered renting out her children to work at traffic intersections. Her elderly mother-in-law could no longer work, and the family could not afford her medication.
“Financially, the offer helped me. But emotionally, every time I went there, I experienced the same feeling of violence.”
Benazir eventually accepted. As the family’s economic situation deteriorated each month, she felt there was no longer any way back.
“It was as though only my body remained, and there was no soul left inside it. After that, whenever a man offered me money for sexual services, I accepted.”
She says migrant women face a further layer of discrimination even within the sex-work market.
“People who approach migrant women like me offer very little money. Recently, there have been no other jobs at all, so I have had to rely entirely on this work. Many things have happened to me during this time.”
The most traumatic experience, she says, was being sexually assaulted by a group of men. They beat her and abandoned her on a road outside the city. She has never been able to forget it.
“I will never forget that scene. It felt as though my children’s prayers were protecting me.”
Afterwards, she decided to stop doing sex work. But she was soon confronted with the same reality as before: there were no other jobs.
“I told myself I would never do it again, but there was no work for us anywhere. I would have accepted even a quarter of an Iranian worker’s wage, but there is nothing. What am I supposed to do with two children and an elderly mother?”
Benazir says the growing number of women entering sex work has also increased competition, allowing clients to pay even less. Appearance plays a decisive role in the market, she explains, and women who cannot afford clothes, cosmetics, or personal care earn very little.
“Many people have entered this work now, so clients can pick us up for almost nothing. Appearance is very important in sex work. Because we cannot afford to look after ourselves, we earn very little.”
Benazir says she now encounters many other Afghan migrant women caught in the same cycle—women who, like her, face compounded discrimination even within the sex-work market.
The Hidden Face of the Cost-of-Living Crisis
A social worker at a women’s rehabilitation centre says the social background of those referred to such centres has changed significantly. Most now come from the lower-middle class, she says—a pattern more pronounced this year than at any other time, particularly among Afghan migrant women.
Most of these women have entered sex work because of severe economic hardship and an inability to cover basic living costs. Only a small proportion come from the upper-middle class.
Government agencies refer the women to rehabilitation centres to attend educational courses, counselling sessions, and vocational training. But staff at the centres know that such programmes do little to change the conditions that brought them there.
“The central problem facing these women is their livelihood. More than anything, they need jobs and money. We have recently seen a major fall from the middle class into the poorer sections of society. This means the economic situation has become disastrous and there is no work. Women who support their families and women living in poverty will inevitably be pushed towards sex work.”
She describes this trend as deeply alarming.
Women endure violence and multiple forms of harm, only to be sent through a few training programmes before returning to precisely the same economic circumstances.
“We use these meaningless courses to conceal the reality. We know that without economic and legal support, they will be forced back into sex work—and it is a form of work that exposes women to extreme harm.”
The issue is not limited to women. The social worker says the number of men entering sex work has also risen sharply in recent years, although the phenomenon remains largely hidden and is rarely discussed.
“Sex work is hidden and socially invisible. It is primarily associated with women, but many men have also entered it in recent years, and the law and the state treat them in the worst possible way.
“Men are often deeply ashamed to speak about the sexual abuse they experience. As a result, they are likely to face even more severe psychological and emotional harm.”
The Men No One Sees
The experience of Parsa, a 32-year-old man, supports the social worker’s account and reveals another dimension of the crisis: economic hardship is pushing men, as well as women, into sex work.
Parsa worked for years as a website designer at a private company. Internet shutdowns and the economic recession caused the company to lose its contracts, and he was eventually dismissed. After losing his job, he repeatedly searched for work but could find nothing that paid a viable wage.
The economic and psychological pressure ultimately led him to accept a friend’s suggestion that he begin sex work.
He remembers his first job at a late-night party. It was the first time, he says, that he felt he was no longer a person but “a commodity.” His clients treated him as though he were an object available for use. The experience gave him a better understanding of what women in sex work endure.
“When you have no money, you are nothing more than an object.”
For Parsa, the meaning is clear: the human body becomes a commodity whose value is determined not by the person’s humanity but by demand, appearance, and the client’s purchasing power.
He says the number of male sex workers has grown in recent years, and many work with women, men, or both.
He believes that “no soul remains” in the bodies of those caught in this situation and that their lives are overshadowed by the feeling of having been turned into commodities.
Parsa now intends to leave Iran. He hopes that in Europe he might, in his words, “live like an ordinary human being for a few years.”
His story shows that the economic crisis is driving men as well as women into sex work. Men in this position face not only financial pressure but also intensified shame, denial, and psychological distress because society does not even acknowledge men as possible objects of sexual exploitation.
Sara’s story opens another window onto the phenomenon.
The 19-year-old says poverty is not always the sole reason someone enters sex work. Curiosity, the desire to break social taboos, and economic hardship can converge, drawing people into a cycle that is difficult to leave.
She told Radio Zamaneh that two years ago, while visiting a square near her neighbourhood, she noticed a group of women getting into cars and returning later.
Curious, she began watching what they did. One day, a driver made her a similar offer.
“A car happened to stop in front of me. The driver named a price, and I realised that these women were providing sexual services to men inside the cars. I accepted immediately.”
Her family was not financially secure, but she says poverty was not her only reason.
“In a way, it seemed interesting to me. It was something forbidden, which made me even more curious to experience it. I had always been taught that sex was bad and ugly—by my family, at school, and through the media. I wanted to know what this forbidden thing actually was.”
What began as curiosity gradually became part of her everyday life.
“Over time, it slowly became a habit. I could at least earn some money for myself, although it was emotionally difficult to be with a different person each time and endure their degrading behaviour. But I don’t know why I became so dependent on the work.”
Her account shows how easily young people—particularly those living in marginalised areas amid economic crisis and a lack of employment opportunities—can enter a cycle that is difficult to escape.
It provides immediate income but can gradually become part of a person’s sense of identity.
When Age Closes Every Other Door
Zeinab, a 57-year-old woman, describes another path into the same crisis.
She entered sex work when she had no other means of covering her living expenses. Her husband had died several years earlier. She lived in rented accommodation, received no support from any institution, and could not afford a dowry for her daughter, who was planning to marry.
Wherever she applied for work, she says, employers rejected her because of her age.
“This was the only option left to me. Sometimes people are forced to do things they have no desire to do. Desperation leaves them no choice but to submit to it.”
For Zeinab, the most painful aspect is society’s judgement.
“The shame that society imposes on us is very difficult to bear. But that same society pushed us in this direction because we genuinely had no support.
“We had no money to start a business, and no one would employ us. There was no work. Faced with the choice between survival and death, I had to become a sex worker in order to stay alive.”
Despite everything she endures, her age means that she earns very little.
“At the moment, I make at least five or six million tomans a month. Sometimes clients give me only half the agreed amount, and sometimes they pay me nothing at all.”
She describes continual humiliation and verbal abuse as part of her everyday life.
The accounts of Benazir, Parsa, Sara, and Zeinab approach the issue from different directions, but all describe the same underlying reality: economic crisis, discrimination, the absence of social support, and financial insecurity have transformed the course of their lives.
Women, men, migrants, older people, and young people experience these conditions differently. What they share is the struggle to survive in a society where employment, social protection, and the possibility of making meaningful choices are becoming increasingly restricted.
For many, sex work is not the outcome of a free choice. It results from being trapped at the intersection of poverty, discrimination, violence, and abandonment.
As long as those conditions remain in place, more people will be pushed down the same path.
