The scale of draft evasion has become a major problem for the Islamic regime in Iran. In late March, just weeks after the war with the U.S. started, the IRGC announced the new Homeland-Defending Combatants for Iran program. It lowered the enlistment age to 12 years old. Young boys are given weapons and tasked with manning checkpoints, going on intelligence patrols, guarding vehicle convoys and other missions. The exploitation of children in the war of Iran caused outrage in Iran, when it was revealed that the 11-year-old boy Alireza Jafari was killed in an airstrike while manning a checkpoint in Tehran. Even before the war, avoiding Sarbazi (compulsory service) was a common strategy. However, the regime’s problems with manning various military units through the draft have grown significantly since the war broke out. Millions of draft evaders are classified as Gha'eb (the absent). Legally, anyone who fails to report within a six-month window after turning 18 is branded a Gha'eb. In an attempt to force compliance, the regime denies these men their basic civil rights. They cannot officially work, obtain business permits, receive bank loans or secure academic degrees. In response, Iranian youth have engineered survival mechanisms to carve out a normal life in the shadow of the regime. Because being drafted now means either becoming a target for American munitions or risk being forced into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to kill domestic protesters, compliance is viewed as both moral and physical suicide. Evaders deliberately opt out of the formal job market by working entirely in the underground economy. Some work cash-in-hand jobs positions or in family businesses to survive without corporate registration. A massive black market has grown up around bribes for corrupt military medical boards to secure fake health exemptions. Others prolong their university studies, jumping from one degree to another solely to exploit student deferments and delay their call-up. These draft dodgers desperately try to avoid being drafted into the IRGC and ordered into shooting at their own people or sent to man air defense systems that are frequently blown up by American fighter jets. Some join armed resistance groups which set deadly ambushes against regime forces but the vast army of the Gha'eb is simply trying to survive until an opportunity to topple the regime will arise. May that day come as soon as possible.