“Suicide of Mohammad, the child laborer from Mahshahr due to poverty”, “Suicide of Reza, the hopeless child laborer from the Honey Moon program”, “Details of the suicide of 12-year-old Zainab in Hellelan”, “Reason for the suicide of 11-year-old Armin from Kermanshah”, “Suicide of an 11-year-old boy due to not having a mobile phone and being deprived of education”, “Everything about the suicide of a 15-year-old girl in Behzisti Mashhad”, “Zainab, Emran, Jahangir, and Armin”, “Death of the fourth teenage boy from Saqqez due to suicide in less than three weeks”, “Simultaneous suicide of four teenage girls in Babol, Mazandaran”; These are just some of the headlines of the media about child suicide in 2020. A year that intensified the bitter and heartbreaking events of child suicide.

What is the nature and reason behind child suicide?

Child suicide, like adult suicide, is a phenomenon that can have various factors. Sometimes peer pressure or adolescent emotions can drive a child towards suicide, and other times deprivation, fear, and an inability to solve problems can lead a child to take their own life. However, examining the circumstances of children who have committed suicide in the past year shows that often they have ended their lives due to reasons such as poverty, family conflicts, parental addiction, forced marriage, and failure in life.

These children grow up in a family and society where violence is reproduced in various ways and there is an economic crisis. They live in a society and family that not only fails to provide their basic needs such as access to education and welfare, but also exploits them. The feeling of absolute abandonment and deep loneliness, mistreatment, violence, failure, and humiliation imposed on these children by society and family goes beyond the psychological capacity of a child and ultimately leads them to the point where they decide to eliminate themselves. This elimination takes

Child suicide in Iran and the denial of responsibility by officials.

The World Health Organization has announced that suicide is the 13th leading cause of death among individuals aged 15 to 34, and that every 40 seconds, one person dies from suicide. In Iran, most suicides occur among individuals aged 15 to 34. The Legal Medicine Organization has reported that in 2020, an average of 15 people per day died from suicide in Iran, but so far, no official and confirmed statistics have been released on the rate of child suicide. Despite the fact that the Legal Medicine Organization has announced a 4.2% increase in the suicide rate since the beginning of 2020 compared to the same period last year, and the Deputy Minister of Sports has reported a decrease in the age of suicide in the country, statistics on child suicide continue to be based on figures that were announced in previous years. According to statistics published by the Legal Medicine Organization in previous years, the rate of child suicide in Iran is seven percent of the total number of

Child suicide due to poverty

Zeynab was 12 years old and Mohammad was 11 years old, one from Ilam and the other from Bushehr. Both committed suicide; one in April and the other in October, both for the same reason: extreme poverty. Before her suicide, Zeynab burned all of her old clothes so that no one would see them after her death. Her father was disabled and they lived in a house without a roof. After the media reported that Zeynab’s father had requested a loan to repair their house but was denied by the director of the Ilam Welfare Organization, who claimed that the family was already receiving support, the news of Mohammad Mousavi Zadeh, an 11-year-old from Bushehr, committing suicide due to lack of access to online education and the Shad Network was equally heartbreaking and shocking. However, the officials of the Education Department of the province claimed that they had provided a free mobile phone to this student, but

Child labor suicide

Reza has twice warned the Iranian society; once when he said on a live TV show that he has no wishes because he has worked so hard that he hasn’t had the opportunity to think about his wishes, and once when news of his suicide was published. The tragic story of Reza’s life is the story of all child laborers in a society that, despite being aware of the difficult conditions, neglects them. Child laborers not only become victims of poverty, deprivation, and failure, but also endure injuries and wounds in their homes, workplaces, and on the streets that destroy their spirits and minds. In fact, the lives of child laborers are a mixture of sufferings and hardships such as poverty, exhausting work, neglect, humiliation, illness, sexual assault, and abuse, which are almost impossible for an adult to endure, let alone a child with limited abilities and who has been neglected. Reza was one of these children who was ignored by the society that had previously

Suicide due to negligence and irresponsibility of responsible institutions.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child commits member countries to provide necessary support and care for the well-being of children, in accordance with the rights and responsibilities of parents and guardians. It also requires institutions responsible for the care and protection of children to adhere to approved standards and be constantly monitored and inspected by competent authorities.

In Iran, the main organization responsible for supporting children is the Welfare Organization, and the Social Emergency Organization, as a subsidiary of this organization, is obligated to provide support for vulnerable and at-risk children. These children may be in difficult and neglectful situations, in which case the Social Emergency Organization is responsible for ensuring their safety. However, the negligence and shortcomings of this organization in fulfilling its duties have caused significant harm to children, and in some cases, even led to suicide and death. Sajede, a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide in Mashhad Welfare Organization, Ghazal, a teenage girl from Lorestan who killed herself after being discharged from the

Child suicide due to sexual abuse

Sexual abuse of children is a phenomenon that exists all over the world, but many countries try to reduce its prevalence through preventive and supportive measures. Education and awareness for families and children are the most important components of these preventive measures. In these societies, children are taught self-care skills through families, schools, and group media, and abused children are supported and receive psychological and therapeutic interventions. However, a child who has not received necessary education about sexual issues from their family, and has not learned necessary skills from school and media, and lives in a traditional society where sexual issues are considered taboo, may resort to suicide under the pressure of the suffering, fear of others’ reactions, and concerns about issues such as honor, if they become victims of sexual abuse. Hamed Rezaei, a 12-year-old child who ended his life in Kashan after being abused, was one of these children. Before his suicide, Hamed had told a close friend that he had been assaulted and intended to

Child suicide due to forced marriage
In the month of Khordad of this year, the news of the suicide of 13-year-old Zohreh, a girl from Kerman who was an orphan and under the care of her mother, was released. Her mother told the media, “She committed suicide due to the pressure from her uncles for forced marriage.” Zohreh had been beaten multiple times for disobeying her uncles’ wishes. She is one of the thousands of girls who become victims of early and forced marriages in different parts of Iran, and one of the dozens of children who resort to suicide to escape this coercion.

Early and forced marriages are prevalent in some provinces of Iran, and poverty and financial difficulties have only added to their prevalence. Many of these girls are forced by their families to marry much older men for a small amount of money, and some of them, who do not want these marriages, resort to suicide and self-immolation to escape their situation. Zohreh was lucky to have

Child suicide due to depression and family conflicts.

In December of this year, news of a 12-year-old child’s suicide by shooting himself in the head with a revolver in the Saadat Abad area of Tehran was released. In a video taken during the final moments of his life, he stated that he was tired of living and could no longer continue. The child’s parents were separated and he lived with his father, who was a doctor. Family conflicts, emotional neglect, depression, romantic and emotional experiences, identity and sexual conflicts, peer pressure, and imitation and influence from movies and social media are among the factors that can push a child to the brink of suicide. Often, these children show signs of distress before attempting suicide, and if their family and those around them can recognize and understand these signs in time, they can improve their situation through therapeutic interventions and prevent a tragedy. However, to prevent child suicide in cases where it is directly related to social and economic conditions, underlying factors such as poverty, ignorance, violence, and