The number of women heading households has increased to 2.6 million, Fariba Barimani, director of the empowerment office of family and women in the Welfare Organization, told a news conference on January 1, 2017.
Only 180,000 of these women are assisted by the Welfare Organization. (The state-run Shabestan website- January 1, 2017)
Also on December 31, 2016, Habibollah Massoudi, social deputy to the Welfare Organization said, “5.5 per cent of the 2.5 million women heads of households in the country, i.e. 137,500 women, are girls who have never married.” (The state-run IRNA news agency – December 31, 2016)
Last November, government officials had declared that the number of women heading households were 2.5 million.
