Atrocities Suffered by Iran’s Minority Children Are Largely Ignored by World

World Children’s Day is Meaningless Without Fighting to Protect the Most Vulnerable 

November 20, 2024 — The children of Iran’s ethnic and religious minority communities suffer an appalling range of rights abuses in all walks of life—most of which go largely unaddressed by the international community. Typically hailing from communities in Iran’s less developed provinces struggling with poverty and oppression, it is the children of these marginalized communities who are the most vulnerable, the most abused, and the least protected, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said today, on World Children’s Day.

Human rights activists have long known the overall state of children’s rights in the Islamic Republic is grim—Iran has severe issues for example with child marriage, child labor, and street children—but the children of minority communities not only experience these problems at far higher rates, they suffer a myriad of additional issues stemming from the intense state violence and persecution directed at these communities. 

“Who will speak out for Iran’s minority children, the country’s silent victims of so many violent crimes and atrocities?” asked Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director.

“The theme for this year’s World Children’s Day is ‘For every child, every right,’ yet in the Islamic Republic, there are simply no rights for minority children. The violence and discrimination these oppressed communities face impacts the children of these communities in catastrophic ways,” Ghaemi stressed.

CHRI calls upon the UN and all Member States to prioritize the protection of Iran’s children, especially the children of the country’s ethnic and religious minority communities, and directly and forcefully address the many severe abuses they face with the Iranian authorities.

Further, the international community, in coordination with Iranian civil society, should pursue the establishment of an independent investigative body or fact-finding commission through a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council to examine the systematic violations of children’s rights in Iran. Such a commission would gather documented evidence regarding the execution of juveniles, arbitrary detentions, and other forms of violence against children, providing independent reports for accountability. Other mechanisms of enforcement should be considered, such as suspending Iran’s membership in relevant UN bodies.

A Civil Rights Activist in Sistan and Baluchistan Speaks Out on the Plight of Children

A recent conversation CHRI held with a civil rights activist living in Sistan and Baluchistan, who is unnamed for security reasons, touched upon the linkages between the deep poverty of this region, Iran’s poorest and most undeveloped province, and the abuses that stem from it.

“The greatest challenge faced by minority children, especially in Sistan and Baluchistan, is poverty. But it is important to know what this poverty means. Many people think only of economic poverty as the cause of the problems in Sistan and Baluchistan. But one of the most important challenges for girls in many cities in Sistan and Baluchistan is forced marriage. When there is no educational space for these girls, and no opportunities to enter society [productively] and build a future, how can families be convinced to prevent forced marriage?”

The activist is unsparing in highlighting the cost of these forced child marriages: “In recent years, we have seen many suicide cases among teenage girls in the province.”

In addition to suicides, many child brides who eventually try to flee abusive forced marriages are then victims of honor killings—an act that is encouraged by the Islamic Republic’s lenient punishments for such killings. Other Iranian activists have also talked to CHRI about the many women in Iran’s prisons who are serving long sentences for killing abusive husbands after forced child marriages. 

The civil rights activist in Iran also spoke to CHRI about childhoods taken away by forced labor:

“Many children in Sistan and Baluchistan do not experience childhood, as they engage in selling fuel along with their fathers or older brothers. [These are the so-called sukhtbars, who, along with kulbars in the Kurdish regions, resort to cross-border trade due to lack of any jobs in these regions, and then are gunned down by border agents.] Many teenagers whose fathers were killed for trading fuel, or drug trafficking, were themselves eventually sentenced to long prison terms or even execution.”

She also noted the terrible cost to children of the Islamic Republic’s disproportionate application of the death penalty against minorities. (The Baluch minority, for example, which only comprises about 5% of the population, accounts for some 29% of the individuals executed for drug offenses in Iran.)

“Children in many areas of Sistan and Baluchistan learn about executions much, much earlier because nowhere else in the country are such bitter and inhumane concepts, such as being killed on the roads or through execution, so close to the daily life of children.”

A Litany of Abuses Faced by Iran’s Minority Children:

• Lethal state violence against peaceful child protesters: At least 19 Baluchi children were among the more than 100 people killed by state forces on one day, Bloody Friday, September 30, 2022, in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province. At least 16 Kurdish children lost their lives during the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. Amnesty, meanwhile, reported that over 60% of the children killed in those protests were from Iran’s Baluchi and Kurdish minorities.
• Execution of juveniles: Iran is one of the very few countries in the world that continues to execute children and juvenile offenders—and these juveniles are often members of minority communities. For example, arrested for murder when he was only 17, Mehdi Barahouie, a 21-year-old Baluchi, was executed on October 9, 2024, in Zahedan.
• Loss of parents due to state violence: Many minority children lose their parents due to the disproportionate application of the death penalty against minorities, the state’s disproportionate use of lethal state force against peaceful protesters in minority regions, and the imprisonment of minority parents for their religious beliefs (which especially affects the Baha’i community). The UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran noted the impact on children of the state’s disproportionate violence against minority communities during the protests:

“The impact of the protests on minorities cannot be overstated. The social fabrics of communities have been frayed. Women belonging to ethnic and religious minorities experience distinct harms that are compounded by pre-existing discrimination and violence against them both as women, as well as by virtue of their status as ethnic and religious minorities. The impact on children is transgenerational – the multifaceted harms of which may be expected for decades to come.”

• Child marriage: Minority children are disproportionally forced into child marriages, which are legal for girls at age 13 (younger with the consent of a judge and male guardian). Figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran showed from March 21, 2022-December 21, 2022, there were more than 20,000 marriages of girls under 15 years old and 1,085 cases of childbirth in the same age group. Iran has since stopped publishing information on child marriages and births. Zahra Rahimi, co-founder of the now disbanded Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society, told CHRI: Another fundamental issue is poverty. When [girls] reach puberty, they are forced by their families to marry in order to leave home. Poverty and lack of educational infrastructure in deprived provinces make girls not have the opportunity to continue their education and forces them to marry at a young age.” 
• Unprotected by the law from domestic violence: In addition to the issue of honor killings, Iran’s laws leave children deeply unprotected from physical and sexual abuse, and the lack of services available in minority regions, as well as the lack of language skills or familiarity with the judicial system, leaves victims from minority regions even more unprotected.
• Inadequate schools: Provinces where minorities dominate have significantly fewer primary and secondary schools (to the extent that sometimes students are forced to drop out due to the lack of any nearby schools), and those that exist are often in a state of disrepair.
• Child labor: Minority children also account for a disproportionate number of children who are in forced labor as child labor is deeply connected to the poverty that characterizes Iran’s minority regions. There are no official comprehensive figures on the number of child laborers in Iran, but according to a member of Tehran City Council, there are 70,000 child laborers in Tehran alone, 80% of whom are not Iranian nationals. In its July 2023 report, Iran’s Parliamentary Research Center said 8% of the country’s children are laborers and 10% of them do not go to school.
• Severe poverty: Iran’s minority children typically live in badly underdeveloped provinces that are neglected by the state, not only affecting education, health, and other services essential to children’s health and well-being, but also forcing children to assume dangerous work to help support their families. Many undertake illegal border courier work; the Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that from March 2023 to March 2024, at least 15 child kulbars, were shot by the state forces.”
• Street children: A disproportionate number of minority children are also street children, which also increases their risk of being forced into drug and/or sex trafficking. Lawyer Reza Shafakhah, in an interview with Shargh newspaper on October 13, 2024, said: “It is not possible for you to open a curtain and look out the window in the farthest reaches of Iran and not see a child going through a trash can. The fact that nearly 120,000 street children are active in Iran is a form of child abuse.” Deputy Justice Minister Ali Kazemi said in February 2024, 20,000 child laborers slept in Tehran’s metro during winter.

Iran’s Treatment of Minority Children Severely Violates Iranian and International Law

Iran’s treatment of its minority children directly violates multiple articles in the country’s own constitution, as well as its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a State Party, and under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Iran is also a State Party. The latter states: “Special measures of protection and assistance should be taken on behalf of all children and young persons without any discrimination for reasons of parentage or other conditions. Children and young persons should be protected from economic and social exploitation.”

Iran is also in violation of its obligations under the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Fundamental Principles, which strictly forbid child labor.

In addition, the Iranian government’s use of violence against peaceful protesters, which is particularly applied in the regions dominated by minority communities, as well as its violence against border couriers, blatantly violates the UN’s Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which explicitly state that the “intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”

Most pointedly, the Islamic Republic is in profound violation of multiple articles contained within the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which it is a State Party. Among the many violations, the CRC strictly forbids the executions of juveniles. The government of Iran has explicitly stated that it will not apply any provision that is “incompatible with Islamic laws or [domestic] legislation.” The Iranian government also ratified the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2007) but its implementation severely lacking. 

Prominent human rights lawyer Saeid Dehghan, said: “In response to the systemic violation of children’s rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran and its breaches of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (despite being a signatory), we, as Iranian civil society, must advocate for practical measures that ensure legal accountability through international mechanisms, particularly within the framework of the United Nations.”

“Iran’s minority children are not just statistics; they are human lives shattered by violence, poverty, and systemic discrimination. The international community must ensure Iran’s minority children are no longer forgotten victims,” Ghaemi said.