An Ongoing Tragedy: Suicides of Iranian Schoolchildren in Poverty

Parastou Jalili Azar had seen just 13 springs. By all accounts, she was a calm, well-behaved eighth-grade student, enrolled at Talatapeh Middle School in Urmia’s Nazlou district. On October 19, she took her own life.

Worse still, Parastou is not the only one. Hers is the latest in a series of child suicides in Iran that have shaken the nation and prompted widespread debate as to the cause. Poverty is the common denominator in each of these horrendous occurrences. What can parents in poverty do to help guard against this – but more importantly, where is the Iranian state?

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Parastou Jalili Azar lived with her family in the village of Hesar Sopourghan in Nazlou, Urmia province. Her father works as a laborer. Mirshad, a neighbor, told IranWire that according to relatives at Parastou's funeral, her school and teachers had instructed her to study online due to the coronavirus pandemic – but her family could not afford it.

"A funeral,” Mirshad, “especially during Covid-19 when everyone is physically distanced from each other, is not a good place to talk about a young girl’s cause of death with her mourning family.

“[For this reason] I don’t know whether the issue was the lack of a cell phone or a tablet, or whether they couldn’t access other resources. I don’t know what the cause of the tragedy was. But I saw Parastou often, and she was a very sensible girl. The family have said nothing, and all the neighbors say there were no family disputes. They say the reason was nothing other than poverty and pressures on her family, which she could no longer bear.”

Parastou’s teacher reports that this student had no phone or tablet of her own last year, and conducted her studies based solely on printed resources and TV. But the closure of schools this year had made it almost impossible for her to continue her education.

“At the mourning ceremony,” Mirshad says, "the same teacher said that she had had a good relationship with the student, but had realized that she was becoming sad and depressed in the weeks leading up to her death.”

Urmia’s education department has issued a specific denial of the claim that Parastou committed suicide due to her lack of access to a tablet or smartphone. It also quoted the head of Nazlou education department, who insisted that both she and other students “in this condition” had not been forgotten by the authorities. The statement did not address Parastou’s non-attendance since classes had moved online.

Poor Students’ Lack of Access to Education Predates Covid

Clinical psychologist Razieh Dehdashti points out that according to the education department’s own statement, Parastou was also conducting her studies through television and educational packages last year as well. “This means she had problems with access even last year. This child has probably endured a long period without enough support from any government agency, and without an appropriate device.”

According to Article 30 of the Iranian constitution, the government is obliged to provide free educational facilities and resources for all young people up until the end of high school.

Children in poverty struggling with their mental health, Dehdashti says, can be harder to support than those in more comfortably-off families. “We usually advise clients with children who are depressed to reduce the factors that put them at risk of depression. But what can we say to parents in a situation of increasing poverty – where that very same poverty is what is causing the child anxiety? It’s out of their hands.”

That said, Dehdashti says, there are still ways parents can try to alleviate the stress placed on their children by their material conditions. “By telling stories, for instance, of people who have attained happiness and after a period of hardship and suffering, we can try to show them these deadlocks are not permanent, and that through effort and endurance a person can pass beyond this stage of life. Keeping the flame of hope alive in a child’s heart is the duty of all parents; being poor or constrained does not relieve any of us of this duty.

“Most importantly, though, the child should have emotional support. Regardless of how necessary their studies are, if you think your child is under too much pressure you should immediately enter into a conversation with their teacher and make them aware that out what is most important to you is the child's mental health."

Any warning signs, the psychologist adds, should be taken with the utmost seriousness – and some of them may not be obvious. “If the child asks about the death of a loved one,” he says, “such as a grandparent, and asks questions such as where they went and whether or not they were in pain at the time, do not ignore this. If your child or adolescent seems to be in an unstable mood, has a poor appetite, is not sleeping well, or is anxious or is overwhelmed, do not ignore this. If you don’t have the budget for counseling call the local welfare or education department, or the school, and ask for their advice. They are obliged to provide free mental health services to students who may be at risk."

Dehdashti warns that parents should keep their own emotional relationship with a child as stable as possible, so that the child never feels hesitant to discuss their feelings or ask for attention. “Let them know that you’re proud of them. Control and manage your own behavior and don’t be squeamish in the face of their problems. Demonstrate that as an adult, you are able to manage crises and find solutions.”

Heartbreaking Tales of Child Poverty Arise After Deaths

In January this year, a fifth-grade student at Shahid Asgharzadeh Elementary School in Urmia took pills on the school grounds and died on the way to the hospital. The student’s father, it later transpired, had been jailed over minor debts while her mother, the sole earner in the family, worked as a domestic cleaner. Prior to her death, classmates had repeatedly raised the alarm that she was becoming increasingly desolate over financial pressures on her family.

Last week, another tragedy came to light. This time the deceased was an eleven-year-old boy, Seyed Mohammad Mousavizadeh. His mother gave several interviews in which she insisted her son had hanged himself because, unable to afford a smartphone, he couldn’t do his homework and was coming under pressure at school.

This version of events was publicly rejected by both Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting and the local education department, putting pressure on the mother, who then retracted her claim – though she still denied that contrary to what the school said, her son had never been given a smartphone by them.

A relative of Mohammad told ISNA news agency that this student's family had had a difficult life, with the local welfare organization paying their rent. His father was ill, they said, while his brother suffers from a disability and his mother, too, is scraping a living as a domestic servant. The family, the relative said, do not have so much as a refrigerator or air conditioning.

Mohammad, they said, was finding it difficult to regularly attend school. He had reportedly sometimes even borrowed the smartphones of neighbors, acquaintances and nephews to keep track of what his classmates were studying.

In the aftermath of Mohammad’s death, his mother also reported that her son was under extreme pressure from his teacher and was constantly anxious about his homework. “His teacher,” she said, “had told him to tell his father about his problems, because it had nothing to do with him. The night before the death, he asked me, 'Mom, are you making Ranginak [a date cake often baked for funerals] for me?”