The State Welfare Organization (SWO) has warned that collecting money in streets by charities is illegal whether they are licensed or not.
At present, some of the charities are licensed and some are not. Licensed or not, such means of raising money is illegal.
It is often seen that some women in the main squares of the capital and at high-end shopping malls pose as members of charities seeking monetary help by showing documents to passersby claiming to be the identification papers of patients and children in their care, the Persian language newspaper ‘Sharq’ reported.
Most of them are falsely claiming that they are from charity centers affiliated to the SWO or the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC).
Parviz Fattah, head of the IKRC, denied that their members were collecting money from pedestrians, which “is illegal and not approved by us.”
Fattah also said due to the lack of legal and binding frameworks on the activities of charities, there are people taking undue advantage of the situation.
At present, there are 14,000 legal charities in the country of which 7,000 are active. Unfortunately there is no precise control over their activities.
“We have brought this to the attention of the Majlis (parliament) and hope the issue will be addressed soon.”
Mohammad Hussein Kheirkhah, director general of the office for monitoring of NGOs at the SWO, urged the people to inform the police if they saw any illegal activities by organizations claiming to be working for charities.
