One of the social workers who has years of experience working in the field of empowering Iranian cardboard box women, came to understand something from the everyday language of these women that helped her understand a shocking and disturbing part of their daily lives in just one moment. At first, she realized that these women use phrases like “being sold”, “human trafficking”, “don’t sell me!”, and “thank you for not selling us” in their own language. When these women wanted to thank social workers or organizations and groups that provided services to them, they would say, “thank you for never selling us.” The social worker defined that at first, she was surprised by the repetition and use of the verb “selling” and the phrases that contained it, and she wondered if the use of the verb “selling” in literature and everyday language of these women had a symbolic or figurative meaning. However, as she learned more about their lives and collected the small stories of their daily lives, she came to the

In fact, the naked, terrifying and unbelievable part is this: the cardboard women were sold in their lives by their families, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands or sexual partners in the true sense of the word. This selling, of course, has many symbolic aspects. The trust of these women, their human dignity and self-esteem, their femininity, their will and freedom, the physical and movement limitations and the privacy of these women were all plundered throughout their lives; so considering such terrifying life and social experiences, it is not unbelievable if the language of these women is saturated with the verb “to be sold”.

Empty of how much these women have faced obstacles, problems, disorder and terrifying critical situations throughout their lives, internalizing and accepting that their lives are expendable is another stage beyond all that we can imagine from the daily life and existence of these women. The experience of being sold for someone who has not been in such a situation is incomprehensible. Such a situation must be far beyond humiliation, terror and horror, and insecurity on the brink of a completely unpredictable situation and sheer helplessness in losing complete control over their fate. In fact, any description and explanation of what these women have experienced is insufficient and inadequate in the face of the experiences they have had in life and relationships. What these women have experienced is ultimately and most concisely the decline and fall of the entire human situation and perhaps it is better to stop here in trying to describe this situation due to the lack of the ability to experience its terrifying nature.

But beyond this, meaning in addition to the fact that now we know that experienced women who have been sold, have been exchanged, have a verbal exchange in return for themselves, are full of the act of selling, we can understand the subtleties of working with women like this in which corner and angle that is inaccessible and out of sight. For a person who has been in a situation of exchange, exchange, commodity and commodification throughout his life, only crossing a border can bring him back to human life experiences; crossing the border of becoming an object and being an object; meaning being respected, being dignified, having security, and becoming a member or companion, and ultimately production; creating something of oneself that can be a simple cloth bag, a small carpet, a bath towel or a knitted scarf. If they can go through all these stages well, the last stage is improvement and return to a place where they can help others like themselves and reach self-fulfillment.

The experience of social workers in this field is usually repetitive of the same idea. Homeless women, who often suffer from addiction, can distance themselves from the situation of homelessness and addiction when they become a member of a group or community, in addition to having access to medication, basic medical services, and basic necessities of life; they can sit next to a group of people similar to themselves, drink a cup of tea, and feel trusted; feel that they have human dignity or that others respect that dignity; feel respected and not be sold, both in the real and symbolic sense.

Many civil activities and non-governmental organizations that focus on reducing the harms of addiction and homelessness among women, will not succeed without considering how these women can reintegrate into society and what factors make their journey towards a tolerable situation in society possible. Simply providing medication or temporary shelter, without considering how these women should think about their future, without taking into account that many of these women are only filled with shame and immense anxiety at the thought of their future, without knowing that many of these women feel absolute loneliness and lack of understanding in every moment of their lives, and without creating a supportive network and a circle of shared experiences that these women can constantly return to, will not lead to a successful outcome. Only those helpers and activists, organizations and institutions, can confidently say that they have brought women back from homelessness and addiction to a normal life, or that they are capable of returning women to a society where they know the map of this path, come close to the terrifying transfer of humans into commodities,