Introduction

In the province of Sistan and Balochistan, tens of thousands of children — a portion of the Baloch population — live without birth certificates or any legal identity documents. This situation deprives them of fundamental rights such as education, healthcare, legal recognition, and other basic civil rights. This report aims to expose this situation, analyze its structural causes, and provide recommendations for ensuring the rights of these children.

Scope and Scale of the Issue

According to local reports and human rights defenders, the number of people without birth certificates in Sistan and Balochistan is estimated to be over 100,000, of which around 80,000 are children.
Some local sources report the figure of 55,000 stateless Baloch children.
Despite the efforts of some families to register their identity — for example through submitting lineage documents or DNA testing — the legal process can take years and often leads to no result. As a result, generations remain without official identity.

Root Causes and Structural Factors

Several major factors contribute to the spread of statelessness among Baloch children:

• Limited access to civil registry offices: Many families live in remote areas, villages, or nomadic regions. Long distances, lack of transportation infrastructure, and poverty make it impossible for families to register births within the legal timeframe.
• Poverty and economic deprivation: The costs associated with proving identity (such as traveling to provincial centers for DNA tests or submitting documents) are unaffordable for many.
• Administrative obstacles, discrimination, and bureaucratic complexity: The identity registration system operates in ways that make it difficult for Baloch families; in some cases, existing documents are even invalidated or confiscated.
• Lack of serious follow-up by state institutions: Even after families open a case for identity verification, many remain in limbo for years without any outcome.

Consequences and Human Rights Violations

Denial of Education

Schools across Sistan and Balochistan refuse to enroll many stateless children.
This constitutes a violation of Iran’s international obligations as well as the fundamental rights of these children: the right to education without discrimination.
As a result, many of these children drop out of school or enter child labor (long hours, hazardous jobs).

Limited Access to Healthcare and Medical Services

For example, cases have been reported of five-year-old children admitted to ICU but, due to lack of birth certificates, their families were not covered by insurance or state support.
Without legal identity, access to medical treatment, medication, health services, and emergency care becomes extremely difficult.

Lack of Civil Rights and Legal Identity

Stateless individuals cannot access basic rights such as opening a bank account, receiving government subsidies, obtaining a SIM card, pensions, legal protection, or filing complaints.
They also cannot register marriage, birth of children, deaths, or any civil events — undermining family life, legal security, and identity clarity.

Increased Social and Safety Risks

Lack of official identity makes children and adolescents vulnerable to exploitation, child marriage, child labor, human trafficking, unregistered relationships, and other dangers.
In situations such as arrest or suppression, these individuals are more vulnerable because their identity cannot be verified.

Institutionalized Discrimination and Intergenerational Marginalization

Families who are themselves stateless give birth to children who inherit the same condition — perpetuating a cycle of deprivation across generations.
This situation is not merely an individual problem but part of a structural system of ethnic and regional discrimination against the Baloch minority in Iran.

Human Rights Analysis

This situation constitutes a violation of the fundamental rights of children and citizens — including the right to education, the right to health, the right to legal identity, the right to social protection, and the right to equality.
Systematic deprivation of identity and civil rights for the Baloch minority can be understood as a discriminatory and exclusionary policy targeting an ethnic population.
This issue contradicts Iran’s legal obligations, including its constitution and international treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Conclusion

The statelessness of Baloch children in Sistan and Balochistan — affecting tens of thousands — is a deep and serious human rights crisis. From birth, these children are pushed to the margins: without identity, without access to education, without healthcare, and without civil rights.
This situation is not an individual flaw but the result of policies and structures that systematically target the Baloch minority with discrimination and exclusion.

In Balochistan, there are children who have been denied even the most basic human right — the right to have a name. These children are born into the cradle of imposed poverty and grow up under the shadow of statelessness. They exist neither in the country’s official registries, nor in its development statistics, nor in the dreams of those shaping its future. The issue of statelessness among the Baloch — particularly in remote and marginalized areas — stands as one of the deepest humanitarian, social, and legal crises in contemporary Iran.

Statelessness: The Beginning of Deprivation

Lacking a birth certificate is not merely an administrative or legal issue — it means not having an official existence. These children are “invisible” in the eyes of the state. Their lack of identity prevents access to formal education, healthcare, insurance, subsidies, and even the right to travel within the country. In many rural and border areas of Balochistan, families are unable to register the births of their children due to unregistered marriages, cross-border migration, poverty, lack of awareness, or other factors. The result is a generation of children who, though they live and breathe, do not officially exist.

The right to education is one of the most fundamental rights of every child — yet for stateless Baloch children, attending school has become a distant dream. Public schools often refuse to enroll children without identity documents. Although in recent years some directives were issued to ease this restriction, this year, in contrast, new regulations have been enacted and enforced that explicitly prohibit these children from entering classrooms.

Without education, these children are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance. Many boys are forced into hard labor, fuel smuggling, or other dangerous jobs at a young age, while many girls fall victim to early marriages. Thus, statelessness not only destroys individual futures but also perpetuates poverty and inequality across society.

Statelessness also leads to social exclusion. A child without identity is often treated differently, even within their own community. They are barred from participating in many social, athletic, and cultural activities, fostering a sense of being a “stranger in their own homeland.” This feeling of rejection can cause psychological harm, depression, and even lead to delinquency later in life.

Systematic ethnic discrimination and chronic, imposed poverty in Balochistan — combined with the government’s security-based approach to the region — have resulted in the neglect of these children and similar issues in national policymaking. Any sign of progress or awareness in Balochistan is often perceived by the central authorities as a threat.

A Future Denied: A Generation in Danger of Being Forgotten

A stateless child, deprived of education, employment, and civil rights, grows into adulthood without any recognized status or legal standing in society. They cannot obtain a national ID, their marriages remain unregistered, and their children, too, are born without identity — perpetuating a bitter intergenerational chain of statelessness. In this sense, being without identity means not only deprivation in the present but the denial of a future.

To break free from this humanitarian crisis, the following foundational steps are essential:

Recognition of children’s rights in accordance with international human rights conventions and UN treaties.

Reform of civil registration laws and the creation of simpler mechanisms to register births when parents lack official documents.

Cooperation among social institutions, civil organizations, and media campaigns to raise awareness and mobilize public opinion.

Education and outreach about children’s rights and the importance of birth registration in remote and marginalized communities.

Guaranteed, non-discriminatory access to education, ensuring that all children, regardless of documentation, are admitted to public schools.

Broader media coverage to amplify the voices of stateless children and make their plight heard.

Stateless Baloch children are a mirror reflecting injustice, systemic discrimination, and deep social inequality in Iran. They are the silent victims of exclusionary policies, chronic poverty, and a security-centered mindset of the central government. As long as these children and their rights remain unrecognized, the very concepts of citizenship, justice, and development in Balochistan will remain hollow words.

Social experts emphasize that the first step toward resolving this crisis is to reform the civil registration system and guarantee non-discriminatory school enrollment. Schools must be legally required to accept every child, regardless of documentation, and mobile civil registration teams should be stationed in remote areas to record births immediately. Yet beyond laws and regulations, this crisis demands human understanding. Society, media, and ordinary citizens must recognize that the statelessness of a child is not merely a problem of Balochistan — it is a wound upon the body of humanity itself.

When seven-year-old Yousef walked into his first-grade classroom, he was excited to begin learning. But his smile faded quickly when the teacher said, “Here, you only speak Persian. If you speak Balochi, you’ll be punished.”  

This is not just Yousef’s story. For many Baloch children in southeastern Iran, their first experience of formal education begins not with empowerment, but with the denial of their mother tongue and cultural identity.  

This report explores the slow but deliberate erasure of the Balochi language in Iran’s Balochistan province, and the deep cultural, psychological, and social consequences that follow.

The Mother Tongue: A Silent Victim of Centralized Policy  

Despite Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution allowing for the teaching of local languages alongside Persian, no formal curriculum or educational policy exists to support the Balochi language in public schools.  

This is not a mere bureaucratic oversight. It is part of a broader, long-term strategy of cultural assimilation that seeks to eliminate ethnic and linguistic diversity, especially in peripheral regions like Balochistan.

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Human Consequences: Identity Denied from Childhood  

When Baloch children enter school, they are forced to abandon the language they first thought in—the one they used to speak with their mothers and express their emotions.  

Educational experts and psychologists warn that neglecting a child’s mother tongue during critical developmental years can lead to identity crises, diminished self-esteem, and broken connections with family and community.

Roya, a mother of two in Zahedan, says:  

“My kids only learn Persian through TV and school. But when they try to speak it, they can’t really express themselves. It feels like there’s a wall between us.”

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Teachers and Cultural Workers Under Pressure  

In the absence of official support, Baloch teachers and cultural activists are left to act on their own. Some offer informal classes or create educational content online, despite lacking resources.  

These efforts often face pressure from authorities, warnings of illegality, and a total lack of institutional support.

Abdollah, a retired teacher from Chabahar, recounts:  

“We have no books, no help. Even when we tried to organize voluntary Balochi classes outside school hours, we were told it was against the law.”

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Cultural Resistance: Keeping the Flame Alive  

Despite obstacles, the Baloch community continues to resist cultural erasure. Independent cultural groups, families, poets, and a new generation of digital content creators are working to preserve the Balochi language.  

Podcasts, YouTube channels, home-based learning programs, and online campaigns form part of a growing grassroots movement.

Still, without formal recognition of the language in education systems and media, these efforts remain fragile and face the constant threat of marginalization.

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Conclusion  

Language is more than just a tool for communication. It is a vessel of culture, a memory of the past, and the backbone of a community’s identity.  

The suppression of the Balochi language in Iran is not just about denying people the right to speak—it’s about erasing them from the national narrative.  

It is time for government bodies, human rights organizations, and the global public to recognize the right to education and expression in one’s mother tongue.  

As long as a child cannot speak their native language at school, educational justice remains a distant dream.

The four men were arrested in Urmia, West Azerbaijan, on 22 June 2022 and have been held incommunicado ever since. They reportedly were tortured into delivering forced confessions broadcasted by state media. Ultimately, the Tehran Revolutionary Court, following proceedings marred by serious violations of fair trial and due process standards, sentenced them all to death for moharebeh (enmity against god) and efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) on alleged espionage charges for Israel. Alarmingly, the Supreme Court then upheld their death penalty within 24 hours, as reported by their relatives.[1]

Given the rapid confirmation of the death sentences by Iranian courts amidst an escalating campaign to suppress dissent and instill fear among Iranians through widespread application of the death penalty, there exists a grave and immediate risk that these executions will be expediently carried out.

This urgency underscores the critical need for prompt international action. Impact Iran reaffirms that international condemnation of cases of individuals facing execution, when coupled with proactive diplomatic engagement and concrete actions to hold Iran accountable on the international stage, are not just mere symbolic acts. They are powerful tools in preventing executions and have saved lives in Iran.

Many more are at risk of execution.

We are deeply alarmed and appalled by the chilling surge in executions, including against those who have expressed dissent since the onset of the Woman Life Freedom movement in September 2022 following the death of Jina Amini in morality police custody. As a tool for intimidation, these executions are part of a broader campaign to spread fear among the Iranian population, quash any form of dissent, and force Iranians into self-censorship. So far, the authorities have executed at least eight individuals for alleged acts connected to the protests. More are at imminent risk of execution.[2]

Human rights monitors[3] report that in 2023, the number of persons executed skyrocketed, with over 790 persons being executed. Ethnic minorities are often flagrantly over-represented among those executed. More than 20% of those executed in 2023 belong to the Baluch minority, while they represent between 2 to 5% of the population. Kurdish prisoners make up over 50% of those executed for political and security-related charges in the past 13 years.[4] These numbers are even more alarming considering that Iran’s legal and justice systems function in utter disregard of fair trial and due process to the point of “render[ing] most if not all executions in the State an arbitrary deprivation of life.”[5]

Despite global condemnation, including a statement almost a year ago from over 50 states warning Iran against the instrumentalization of the death penalty “to punish individuals participating in protests and to strike fear into the population with the aim of chilling dissent,” Iran continues to have one of the highest execution rates in the world. The government’s widespread and illegal use of the death penalty, even in the face of repeated calls from UN human rights experts, states, and civil society organizations, indicates that Iran will continue its relentless spree of executions unless the United Nations and the international community dramatically increase the political costs associated with these acts.

Therefore, we call upon Member States and the United Nations, including its human rights accountability mechanisms, to:

Urgently, publicly, and unequivocally urge Iranian authorities to halt the executions of Mohsen Mazloum, Pejman Fatehi, Vafa Azarbar, and Hajir Faramarzi and call for an overturn of their death sentences. We urge Member States to go beyond mere restatements of their traditional opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances, explicitly name the individuals at risk of executions, and acknowledge the arbitrary nature of their death sentences.
Invoke diplomatic channels, both through Embassies for countries with a presence in Iran and through countries’ engagement with Iranian Permanent Missions in Geneva, Vienna, and New York. We call on States to inquire about and express grave concern regarding the imminent executions of the four men and others at risk, with a view to preventing their executions.
Systematically, publicly and bilaterally, reiterate an unequivocal call for a moratorium on all executions in view of abolishing the death penalty in Iran and highlight the pressing need to hold accountable those responsible for issuing and carrying out arbitrary deprivations of life.
Utilize all available avenues within the United Nations, including the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, to highlight grave concerns about the use of the death penalty in Iran and mobilize international pressure for change.

SIGNATORIES

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

ADAPP – Association for the Defence of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran

AHRAZ

Ahwaz Human Rights Organization

All Human Rights for All in Iran

Baloch Activists Campaign

Balochistan Human Rights Group

Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM)

Haalvsh

Hengaw Human Rights Organization

Impact Iran

Iran Human Rights

International Educational Development, Inc. (IED)

Kurdistan Human Rights Association-Geneva (KMMK-G)

Kurdpa

Rasank

Siamak Pourzand Foundation

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)