Student suicides, the destruction of hope for Iran's future, the silence of officials

One of the issues that has challenged education and families in the past four years is the series of suicides of students aged 11 to 18. In 2015, 13 students killed themselves using various tricks, leaving their families devastated.

According to forensic statistics, the suicide rate in Iran has increased in recent years. Accordingly, comparing the statistics for 2013 with 2012 shows that the suicide rate has increased by 11 percent in this one year. Of course, this is while the latest statistics published by the Forensic Medicine Organization on deaths suspected of suicide are for the first four months of 2013 and there are no new statistics in this field.

There are many reasons cited for suicide. Failure in love, financial or academic failure are all factors that can bring a person to the brink of taking their own life.

However, according to Hassan Mousavi Chelak, head of the Iranian Association of Social Workers, all of this has two key components: depression and mental disorders: "These two factors are more common in those who attempt suicide. Suicide occurs under the influence of individual factors, family factors, and social factors. Statistics on sadness show that Iranian people are sad. That's why we don't have a program for happiness. The index of cheerfulness and cheerfulness is not very high."

According to research and social, economic, and political evidence, mental disorders are high in Iran. According to some statistics, 34 percent of people in Tehran have at least one mental disorder. However, the increase in suicide rates among Iranians, which all statistics testify to, necessitates the search for factors and solutions to deal with this social problem.

As has been shown in the study of the causes of many suicides, poverty itself does not lead to social deviance in general and suicide in particular. Rather, what plays a major role is the feeling of poverty that arises from comparing oneself with others. What hurts the soul and spirit of an individual in school or in a group of friends is the class conflict and economic inequality that are abundant in schools, and many school administrators and principals do not take this conflict and inequality into account in their interactions with students.
In fact, in schools, it is only recommended that individual differences among students be taken into account, while today - given the spread of economic inequalities and cultural differences - social differences should also be taken into account in the field of education. Otherwise, a feeling of poverty will be created among students who have economic problems in their families, and the child's spirit and psyche will be damaged and he may engage in suicidal behaviors.

On the other hand, some sociologists believe that today, extreme individualism and social alienation are increasingly threatening the lives of children and adolescents, meaning that children and adolescents are caught in the limbo between tradition and modernity and are somehow suffering from depression, anxiety, and individualism.

The following table shows student suicides in 2015, as published in official news agencies:

Among them, there are students who attempt suicide, and fortunately, their actions are not successful; but at the same time, the statistics of these attempts are not recorded anywhere, and no one addresses them.

<<محمدعلی الستی جامعه شناس می‌گوید:‌ دوره‌ای را تجربه می کنیم که زندگی نسل جدید از مسیر طبیعی فاصله زیادی گرفته است. مسیری که نسل های پیشین طی کرده اند البته از نظر رفاه و تکنولوژی در شرایط بدتری قرار داشته اما آنان مسیری طبیعی را طی کردند و این مسیر طبیعی در روزگار امروز از کودکان و نوجوانان ما دریغ شده است.

By criticizing, a person becomes ready to accept changes in external factors. When a person cannot criticize, he cannot create changes in the outside world, so he tries to create changes in his imagination. The tendency to many drugs and hallucinogens is one of the consequences of a society in which criticism is not cultivated, and another of its consequences is suicide. When a person cannot convey his protest to external factors, this pressure is very likely to lead to suicide. School and family not only do not cultivate teamwork and criticism, but also suppress it.>>

But a society that has narrowed the field for its people in every way, a society that has bowed its back due to the staggering embezzlement of officials, a society that opposes the coexistence of men and women, a society that has ignored the originality and purity of the inner self and has determined and approved a two-month prison sentence for girls and women who do not wear a hijab, a society that executes criminals in public and in front of everyone, in fact provides the ground for injustice, violence, stress, anxiety, and depression, and teaches them how to kill themselves and others.

 Finally, it should be noted that currently, Iranian society, and especially the Iranian student community, is facing spiritual, psychological, financial, and motivational challenges. Because the lack of social affection and the deep involvement of families in making a living has diminished hope for the future, first in the family and then in society, and especially in the student community. And these same factors have led to suicide and the painful end of the lives of teenage students.