Comparative Policy Brief Status of Intellectual Disabilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran Sayyed Ali Samadi Department of Psychology and Education of the Children with Intellectual Disabilities, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Allameh Tabatabaie University, Tehran, Iran Abstract In the Islamic Republic of Iran, considerable stigma is attached to the presence of a family member with intellectual disabilities, and even in Iran’s new constitution, a word with traditional, negative connotation has been retained to refer to persons with intellectual disabilities. While two government organizations have recently become involved with children who have intellectual disabilities, it is estimated that each reaches only a small number of those who need assistance. Applying a prevalence estimate of 2% means that around 360,000 children aged less than 15 years have intellectual disabilities, but just 1.3% of these are known to the Iranian Special Education Organisation. There are no data available on the population of adults with intellectual disabilities. All Iranian children deemed “educable” have the right to 8 years of free education, and those described as “trainable” receive healthcare and rehabilitation services chiefly provided by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs have been established to promote the education and welfare of those persons with intellectual disabilities. For adults, there are very limited opportunities either for work or for care. While laws about the rights of people with disabilities have been formulated, there is no mechanism to ensure that they are implemented. Key issues are to widen access to inclusive education; to provide early intervention based on community-based rehabilitation methods; and to help families and society to initiate ways of providing employment for adults. Keywords: community-based rehabilitation, early intervention, intellectual disabilities, Iran, social policy, stigma BACKGROUND Geography The Islamic Republic of Iran, formerly known as Persia, is located in the Middle East. The capital city is Tehran. It is a vast country of 1.65 million sq km, extending in the north from the Caspian Sea and Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, to the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Oman Sea in the south, and from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east to Iraq and Turkey in the west. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s climate is mostly arid or semiarid, but it is subtropical along the Caspian Coast. Its terrain is rugged, with a mountainous rim, high, central basin with deserts, and small, discontinuous plains along both coasts. The main natural resources are petroleum, natural gas, coal, chro- mium, copper, and iron ore. Economic and demographic indica- tors are found in Table 1. Religion and Culture Persians (51% population) are the largest ethnic group in the Republic. The main minorities are Azeri (24%), Gilaki and Mazandarani (8%), and Kurds (7%) with others such as Arab, Lur, Baloch, and Turkmen. People are mainly Muslims (89% Shi’a Muslims and 9% Sunni Muslims) but there are small numbers of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians (which was the religion of ancient Persia before Islam; Clark, 1998). The official language is Farsi or Persian, but people also speak Azeri, Kurdish, Arabic, Gilaki, and various other languages (Statistical Centre of Islamic Republic of Iran, 1996). Constitution and Government Iran became an Islamic Republic in 1979. The government is a theocratic republic and the constitution codifies Islamic prin- ciples of government. The constitution was approved in Decem- ber 1979 and revised 1989 with expanded powers of the presidency. The Islamic Republic of Iran is divided into 24 prov- inces, each of which is headed by a governor-general appointed by Received October 10, 2006; accepted October 30, 2007 Correspondence: Sayyed Ali Samadi, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, The Faculty of Life and Health Science, School of Nursing, Room 12J07, Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland BT37 0QB; E-mail: samadisa@yahoo.com Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities Volume 5 Number 2 pp 129–132 June 2008 © 2008 International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities and Blackwell Publishing, Inc.