SANANDAJ, Iran – Silence hangs over Quchr, a village in Iranian Kurdistan west of Divandarreh. The people here have seen a considerable suicide toll in recent years.
“Unfortunately, due to illiteracy and a lack of awareness, suicide has risen to the point where there is no longer any fear of death nowadays and this has created a catastrophe in the village,” Hiwa Quraishi, a teacher in Quchr, told Rudaw English.
In this village alone, 16 women and girls have committed suicide in the last 10 years.
“The latest suicide happened six months ago when a woman named Bahar, 35, set herself ablaze due to marital issues with her husband,” Quraishi said.
The teacher has tried hard to raise awareness among his students to prevent further tragedies and encourages young women in particular not to drop out of school.
However, locals are wary about discussing the taboo subjects of suicide and mental health with the media, making it difficult to assess the causes beyond crude economic factors.
“The people of this village do not want the news of growing suicide rate be spread as they feel ashamed,” Quraishi said.
When Rudaw English asked Fayaq Bagi, a member of the local village council, about the suicide rate, he responded angrily.
“The Kurdish nation as a whole is suffering from the problem of suicide among men and women and you came here only to talk about Quchr village?” he said.
Economic instability has been identified as a leading factor behind Iran’s suicide toll as a whole and in the western Kurdish region in particular, including the cities of Bukan, Ilam, Saqqez, Mariwan, and Sanandaj.
Kurdish provinces are among the poorest in Iran with a high rate of unemployment. Bahram Nasrolahizadeh, who heads the budget and planning department in Kurdistan Province, told Tasnim News agency in January 2018 the unemployment rate there stands at 16.3 percent – the third highest among all provinces.
Related: ‘Let me die’: Kurdish Iranians struggle to pay for medicine under US sanctions
When approached by Rudaw English, Sanandaj health officials refused to disclose figures on the city’s suicide rate.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did however offer a general picture of the worrying trend.
Nationwide, six in every 100,000 Iranians commit suicide. “The figure is higher in the Kurdish provinces to the extent that among every 100,000 people in Ilam, 13 commit suicide and it is a dangerous figure,” the official said.
“Fifty-six percent of the suicides take place in urban areas, while the other 44 percent occur in rural regions.”
The rate between men and women is roughly equal.
“Unfortunately, in the marginalized and impoverished areas of Sanandaj, Saqqez, Divandarreh, Kamiaran and Degolan, the ratio is the highest,” the official added.
Top officials have blocked local authorities from releasing suicide data to the media “in order to prevent the spread of pessimism and depression in the society”, he said.
Seven women, one neighborhood, one month
The official silence has forced human rights organizations to document and share their own unofficial suicide data.
During the first eight months of 2019 alone, 190 people committed suicide in the cities of Urmia, Kermanshah, Sanandaj, and Ilam. Among them are 97 men and 93 women.
“Of this number, 44 of them were under the age of 18 including 25 girls and 19 boys,” according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
Locals who spoke to Rudaw English said seven women committed suicide in the Sanandaj neighborhood of Nayser in October this year alone.
Economic hardship
Iranians have come under greater financial pressure since the US reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country after withdrawing from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
Muhain Shujaai, deputy head of the Sanandaj Branch of the State Welfare Organization of Iran, attributes the high suicide rate to economic woes.
“Although our mission in the welfare organization is more about combating dangerous social phenomena, we are indirectly involved in tackling the problem of suicide through raising awareness among students and retired women and the youth,” Shujaai told Rudaw English.
“We are teaching them to live with hope. Whenever we learn that someone has attempted suicide, our psychological advisers and physicians reach out to them to try and restore them to their normal state.”
Shujaai believes “economic woes” are a major contributing factor as they bring about “pessimism and depression and psychological disorders”.
“Our experience in this field tells us that economic crisis and suicide are related.” He also blames the “negative impact of social media platforms on the youth”.
12 schoolgirls plan for group suicide
The 500,000 population of Ilan province bordering with Iraq has seen a particularly high rate of suicides in recent years.
“The people of Ilam bore the brunt of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war,” local psychologist Musa Umaidi told Rudaw English. Many war widows have taken their own lives.
Now economic woes are driving impoverished women to suicide.
“War implications and the lack of an economic plan are and have been the major factors,” Umaidi said.
Ilam saw an especially bleak episode two years ago when 12 schoolgirls decided to commit a group suicide by jumping off the roof of their school.
“Two of them died and others were rescued after their families learned of the plan,” Umaidi said.
“Suicide has become a dangerous crisis in Iran in general and eastern Kurdistan [Iranian Kurdistan] in particular and the relevant authorities must seriously consider a social solution and set long term goals and plans to prevent this growing trend,” he said.
Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali
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