Complaints expose abuse in Iranian schools
A number of high-profile cases of sexual and physical abuse by school authorities points to the failure of the school system and government in Iran to properly address and educate on the issue.
The emergence of a series of horrifying stories about minors being sexually and physically abused by their teachers or headmasters in schools and kindergartens has once again raised public concerns about students’ security in Iranian schools, where the education system has Islamic underpinnings.
“Our son is an elementary school student. A few days ago, we realized that his behavior had changed, and we became suspicious,” read an official complaint filed by the parents of a young student against the headmaster of an elementary school in west Tehran. “After speaking with our son, we realized that he has been harassed by the headmaster at school.” Following these events, a warrant was issued, and the 33-year-old headmaster was arrested on May 9. The Mehr News Agency reported on his trial.
Monika Naadi, a member of the legal committee of the Society for Protecting Children’s Rights told the newspaper Shahrvand: “We have spoken to some of these kids. They say that they have seen some of their classmates being sexually assaulted by the headmaster. However, since they did not know what he was doing, they assumed that he was disciplining their classmate.”
Only a few weeks after the story appeared about the headmaster, whose name was not been released, Iranian publications ran a story about a gym teacher who had assaulted at least 14 of his students, who were 13 to 17 years old. According to a report published by Shargh, “The investigator in charge of this case found that the young students were not only beaten, but also sexually assaulted by their gym teacher. He had forced some of the students to stand naked in front of him so he could take pictures of them.”
