The U.S. State Department, in its new report on human trafficking, placed the Islamic Republic in third place worldwide and said that the Iranian government recruits children for service from the age of 12.

The State Department report shows that the Islamic Republic does not meet the minimum standards necessary to combat human trafficking and that it also does not make significant efforts to achieve this goal.

Published on Thursday, the report accuses officials of the Islamic Republic of committing and turning a blind eye to human trafficking crimes without punishment and states that Iran’s government pursues a policy or pattern based on the forced recruitment of children into armed groups.

According to the report, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia recruit Iranian children as well as vulnerable Afghan, Pakistani, and Syrian migrants.

The report says that earlier this year, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a recruitment campaign in which the minimum age for carrying out some security activities was set at 12.