An Iranian human rights organization said today that mostly impoverished women had carried out 60 suicides in a southwestern city dubbed “city of suicides and self-immolation”.
Human Rights News Agency said the 60 suicide attempts were carried out in the past 4 years in the Dishmok District in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, southwestern Iran. From these figures, 35 suicides led to the victims’ deaths.
The report said the suicides were the result of poverty, unemployment, and locals being forced to discontinue their education.
A member of the City Council of Dishmok, Salman Bina said the city was dubbed as the “city of suicides and self-immolation” but said officials do not take heed.
“In the past month, two men and an 11-year-old girl committed suicide and unfortunately they all died,” he said.
Bina said most suicides in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province were the result of financial problems and poverty, unemployment, and a lack of girls’ dormitories for those who want to continue their education in the province.
“Locals have no way of getting educated, and they need counseling to prevent suicides. The Social Welfare Organization established a temporary counselling center, but it was shut down,” he added.
Bina also said that the district, which has a population of 23,000, had several problems.
“They are the most deprived in the province. Of course, most people in the province are suffering and there are many infrastructural problems,” the City Council member said.
Bina also added that both men and especially women were unemployed.
“If people continue their education to get their Ph.D., they cannot find a job and the only good an education will do for them is to increase their level of awareness,” Bina said.
The City Council member said local authorities had a “bad relationship” with locals.
“The authorities who are selected to manage the county do not know how to communicate with locals and disrespect them. I think before counselling the locals, the authorities need counselling on how to deal with locals and be trained accordingly,” he added.
Last week the Human Rights News Agency said a 11-year-old girl in Dishmok hanged herself and lost her life.
Masoud Ansari, the head of the Dehqazi Village said the sixth grader was facing financial problems and was suffering from poverty and that her father was unemployed and had no source of income.
“About 80 families in this village are impoverished and have severe financial problems,” he added.
Sixty million Iranians live under the line of poverty due to the regime’s systematic lack of supervision over the economy, an Iranian economist said. Speaking to Tabnak, a website affiliated with the regime, Ibrahim Razaghi said “the most important threat to Iran was extreme poverty, widespread unemployment, the inability of many people to pay their rent, and that the rich were getting richer.”
“There are currently 30 million unemployed people and 60 million people live below the poverty line,” he said adding that the economic situation was “very bad.”
According to state-run media, more than 19 million Iranians live in 3,000 slums and make up the 35% of Iran’s urban population.
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