HRANA News Agency – Today, October 8, 2026, a joint letter signed by 24 civil society and human rights organizations was published, calling on Google and Meta to take action regarding the Iranian “Adam and Eve” platform and its role in facilitating child marriage. The signatories are urging the companies to remove the platform’s app and promotional accounts, strengthen child-protection safeguards, and examine its institutional affiliations. The full text of the letter appears below.
Joint Letter Demands Immediate Action from Google and Meta to End Their Role in Facilitating Child Marriage Through Iran’s “Adam and Eve” Platform
October 8, 2026
Ahead of the International Day of the Girl Child on October 11th, Human Rights Activists (in Iran) (HRA) and the undersigned organizations call on Google and Meta to remove the Adam and Eve matchmaking app from Google Play and its promotional accounts from Instagram and Threads. This year’s theme, “End child marriage and invest in girls’ rights,” demands action against digital services that present children as prospective spouses.
An HRA investigation, published today, documents how this Iranian state-licensed and state-promoted platform makes girls aged 13 to 17 publicly searchable as prospective spouses, without requiring an account. During testing conducted by HRA as part of its investigation, searches for girls aged 13–17 repeatedly reached the platform’s maximum display limit of 100 profiles, establishing that at least 100 girls in this age range were listed.
Although its stated terms permit female users over 15 to register, HRA found that the registration system accepts profiles for girls as young as 13. Users can also create profiles for first-degree relatives, including their children. Further, in September 2026, the platform promoted the marriage of a 16-year-old girl to a 23-year-old man as a success story. That announcement remains visible within the app.
Iranian law permits girls to marry at 13, and younger, with guardian permission and court approval. Licensed matchmaking services extend this system into digital spaces, increasing the visibility and accessibility of children to prospective spouses. Despite its legality under Iranian law, child marriage is incompatible with Iran’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has explicitly called on Iran to raise the minimum marriage age to 18 and eliminate child marriage.
Additionally, Adam and Eve operates as an initiative of the Imam Reza Society, founded and led by a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, Hossein Yekta. HRA’s investigation also documents organizational and personnel links to Astan Quds Razavi, raising concerns about connections to institutions subject to US sanctions.
Google Play distributes the app with an “Everyone” content rating and shows more than 100k downloads, while its Instagram account reaches approximately 192,000 followers. These services are effectively expanding the reach of a platform facilitating child marriage.
Google and Meta’s own safeguards provide a basis for action. Google Play requires apps whose core function is matchmaking to block minors and prohibits content facilitating child exploitation or abuse. In 2024, Meta’s Oversight Board upheld the removal of a video advertising beauty services for a 14-year-old bride under Meta’s Human Exploitation policy. Meta should apply the same reasoning to accounts promoting a service that lists children as prospective spouses.
The undersigned organizations call on Google and Meta to:
🔘Remove the app and its promotional accounts. Google should remove Adam and Eve from Google Play. Meta should remove its promotional accounts from Instagram and Threads. Both companies should cease advertising or otherwise promoting the service. Further, both companies should take measures to prevent Adam and Eve from being relisted through alternative developer account(s). Take steps to protect children already exposed through the service by ensuring that children’s names, photographs, ages, locations, contact information, or other identifying information are not publicly accessible or indexed.
🔘Strengthen child safeguarding. Prevent children from being listed or marketed as prospective spouses. Google should independently verify matchmaking apps’ age ratings and assess their content, functionality, and risks to children before publication and after material updates.
🔘Require independent verification of age ratings for dating and matchmaking apps. Google Play currently assigns content ratings through the International Age Rating Coalition system based on developers’ responses to a questionnaire. For dating and matchmaking apps, Google should require independent review of those declarations against the app’s content, functionality, eligibility rules, and risks to children, both before publication and following material updates. Developers’ own descriptions should not be sufficient to establish an app’s age rating.
🔘Investigate ownership and institutional links. Conduct ownership, control, and beneficiary screening in response to HRA’s findings.
🔘Respond within 30 days. Disclose the action taken to address these findings and what steps will be taken to prevent similar services from facilitating child m Provide an assessment of whether the companies found the service compliant with their child-safety and human-exploitation policies and what remedial measures were taken.
On the 2026 International Day of the Girl Child, the call to end child marriage must extend to the digital systems through which children can be made visible and accessible as prospective spouses.
Signed:
🔳مجموعه فعالان حقوق بشر در ایران / Human Rights Activists (in Iran) (HRA)
🔳Sassoufit Collective
🔳Lim Nguen Foundation (LNF)
🔳فعالان حقوق بشر ترکمن صحرا (Tuhra)
🔳SPECTRUM
🔳کانون صنفی معلمان مازندران / Mazandaran Teachers’ Trade Association
🔳NetFreedom Pioneers
🔳Kijiji Yeetu
🔳کانون صنفی معلمان ایران / Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association
🔳Manushya Foundation
🔳سازمان حقوق بشر کردپا / Kurdpa Human Rights Organization
🔳International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
🔳Just Access
🔳انجمن فرهنگیان هرسین / Harsin Educators’ Association
🔳حالوش / Haalvsh
🔳Femena
🔳Association for the Human Rights of the Azerbaijani People in Iran (AHRAZ)
🔳IPEK Center
🔳اتحاد بازنشستگان / Retirees’ Union
🔳DigiCivic Initiative
🔳Magamba Network
🔳World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
🔳کانون صنفی معلمان سنندج / Sanandaj Teachers’ Trade Association
🔳Innovation For Change (I4C) South Asia
