The United Nations Human Settlements Program predicts that with the development and expansion of cities, by the next few decades, over 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. If city managers do not utilize all capacities for sustainable development, a large portion of the population will be pushed to the outskirts of cities, leading to a rise in slums. It is estimated that by the year 2030, approximately 2 billion people will be living in slums. According to the UN Human Settlements Program, currently in developing countries, for every 3 people living in cities, 1 person lives in slums.

In September of this year, Mehdi Abouri, the Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran, announced that there are over 20 million slum dwellers in Iran, meaning 1 out of every 4 Iranians lives in informal settlements and is considered a slum dweller. He also stated that there are 3.2 million households living

Increasing poverty and social inequalities

Marginalization is the undeniable result of poverty and destitution. The people who choose to live on the outskirts of cities are villagers who, for various reasons such as drought, water crisis, poverty, lack of welfare facilities, and economic imbalance between the city and the village, migrate to cities in hopes of a better life. However, because they do not have the means to cover the expenses of city life, including rent, they choose to settle on the outskirts of cities.

The provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Kerman, Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Khorasan, Tehran, and Alborz have the highest rate of marginalization in the country, although other provinces are not exempt from this issue.

Low quality of life, distance from welfare, educational, and public services creates a population over time that does not belong to either the villagers or the city dwellers. What concerns people about the marginalized population in the country is the presence of children who grow

Violence against children in informal settlements

Abolfazl was only twelve years old and was studying until second grade. He worked with his father in the brick kiln to help support his family. He was the sixth child of a father who had been married three times, and Abolfazl was the result of his second marriage. He lived with his stepmother and some of the workers at the kiln said, “Abolfazl even slept in the kiln on many cold winter nights to escape the violence of his father and stepmother.” His family, like many other workers at the brick kilns, had migrated from other cities to the outskirts of Nishapur, and their house was next to the kilns.

Abolfazl finally became a victim of one of these kilns in August of this year and his life of suffering came to an end. He is just one of thousands of children in the outskirts and informal settlements who not only have to endure hard labor, but also become victims of violence.

Social problems gathering in the outskirts of cities.

Poverty plays a determining role in the emergence and prevalence of social problems, addiction, violence, and crime are among the problems that have their roots in poverty. This is why the spread of marginalization has a direct correlation with the increase of social problems, and has caused many marginalized areas to become centers of social problems.

Social inequalities, high population density, deprivation, being far from public and legal supervision, lack of connections and social relationships, and lack of resilience are among the reasons that together turn informal settlements into hubs of various problems.

The increase in crime rates in these areas and the occurrence of various problems naturally also affects children. Many children in marginalized areas are faced with addicted parents and even become addicted themselves at a young age. Some of them have to cover the expenses of their addicted parents, and some become criminals.

Experts consider empowering marginalized children through teaching life skills as the most important solution to keeping them safe from harm in marginalized areas. A solution that, according to Chelak Mous

The remaining dropouts.

A significant population of children who have dropped out of school are those who live on the outskirts of cities. Different and conflicting statistics are published by the Ministry of Education, the Research Center of the Iranian Parliament, and the Ministry of Welfare regarding the number of children who have dropped out of school.

The Minister of Education has stated that the reliable source for the number of children who have dropped out of school is the Civil Registration Organization, but many of these children do not have birth certificates and therefore are not included in the statistics. Additionally, the statistics reported by officials only include children who do not enroll in first grade, while many students in deprived and marginalized areas drop out of high school, and some even drop out in elementary school, but they are not counted as children who have dropped out of school by the Ministry of Education.

Deprivation, cultural and financial poverty, lack of educational facilities, shortage of schools, and distance from roads are among the reasons that lead to the deprivation of marginalized children from free

Deprivation from public, welfare, and medical services

One of the most important problems of marginalized people is the lack of public facilities and services such as clinics, drinking water, electricity, and public transportation. Municipalities often refrain from providing services to these areas because they are outside the city’s jurisdiction, believing that any services provided to these areas will lead to the expansion of satellite towns. Therefore, they use mechanisms of deprivation and restriction to reduce marginalization.

This issue leads to the loss of children’s rights in these areas and even endangers their health and hygiene. The lack of proper and free health services such as vaccination and medical care has caused many of these children to suffer from various physical illnesses and problems.

Skin diseases, malnutrition, gastrointestinal disorders, and various infections are among the diseases that children in marginalized areas suffer from due to lack of access to health and medical services. This is while there is the possibility of prevention for many of these diseases, or if diagnosed in time, the serious risks can be reduced. However, due to the lack

Early marriage and the phenomenon of selling girls
Cultural and financial poverty are two important factors that lead to early marriage of girls in marginalized areas. Many girls in these areas are prevented from continuing their education in high school. There are many families who, due to poverty and economic difficulties, use the excuse of reducing expenses and receiving a small amount of money, marry their daughters to middle-aged men. There are also many families who use the distance to school and the mixed-gender classes as an excuse to prevent their daughters from continuing their education. This issue is particularly prevalent in the marginalized areas of Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Marginalized girls are girls who take on the responsibility of married life at a young age and due to early pregnancies and childbirth, they face numerous physical problems. Widespread cultural poverty in these areas, such as lack of access to social communication tools, lack of life skills education, and lack of empowerment in the issue of early marriage, plays a determining role and has led to the increasing trend of child

Entering the work cycle early and with haste.

Marginalized children are children whose images we often see on social media and in the media, with dirt-covered hands and feet. Working in brick kilns, farms, underground workshops, markets outside the city, garbage collection and recycling are among the most laborious jobs that, although all fall under the category of the worst forms of child labor, marginalized children are forced to endure. In addition, many of these children are forced by their families and guardians to engage in activities such as buying and selling drugs, and in some cases, they are subjected to sexual abuse.

Marginalized children work long hours of the day and receive the smallest share of their meager wages. In the best case scenario, their meager wages are spent on family expenses and on their younger siblings. In some cases, they are forced to pay for the expenses of their addicted parents. Among this group of children, those who collect garbage have an even more deplorable situation, as they spend their nights in abandoned pits

Avoiding development and social interactions.

In addition to all the difficulties and hardships that marginalized children endure, we must also add their exclusion from the development process and deprivation of social connections. Being isolated from urban communities, exposure to violence in the workplace and family, poverty and deprivation can create a tendency towards violence and aggression in children from marginalized areas.

Along with all the hardships and struggles that marginalized people and children face, we must also add a destructive belief that has been systematically instilled in them, robbing them of their power to demand their rights.

Marginalized people believe that because of their illegal settlements in informal settlements, they have no rights and consider themselves potential criminals who have encroached on the boundaries of cities. This is while increasing poverty, deprivation, economic imbalance, social inequalities, and inefficient management are the main factors contributing to the phenomenon of marginalization in the vicinity of cities. In fact, it is not the people and children living in these marginalized areas who should be blamed for their illegal settlements near cities, but the