{"id":337952,"date":"2025-10-07T15:45:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=337952"},"modified":"2025-10-07T15:45:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:45:37","slug":"irans-stateless-children-the-lost-voices-of-baluchestan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/society\/irans-stateless-children-the-lost-voices-of-baluchestan\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Stateless Children: The Lost Voices of Baluchestan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Baluch women and children stand in a dusty village on the outskirts of Zahedan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the arid plains of Baluchistan, where the wind carries more dust than hope, a small boy in Karimabad whispers into a phone camera: \u201cI wish I had a birth certificate so I could go to school.\u201d His words, posted on social media on October 3, 2025, slice through the static of official silence. For a moment, the country pauses\u2014and then looks away. The boy\u2019s voice joins thousands more, echoing from Zahedan to Saravan, from Mirjaveh to Zabol, where childhood ends at the gates of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

Children without names<\/h2>\n

They are not orphans of war; they are orphans of the state. Born in Iran yet denied the single document that proves they exist, thousands of Baluch children are turned away from school doors each morning because they cannot produce a birth certificate. For years, local councils issued provisional attestations so these children could learn to read, write, and dream. But a new directive from the Education Department<\/a> of Sistan and Baluchestan, imposed at the start of the 2025\u20132026 school year, slammed those doors shut.<\/p>\n

Teachers now whisper apologies instead of lessons. Classrooms that once rang with recitations are silent; the same children who sat at wooden desks last spring now wander dirt alleys, not from joy but from exile. Schools, fearing disciplinary punishment, obey the order. \u201cNo ID, no entry,\u201d say the signs. In the clerical regime\u2019s calculus, the absence of a piece of paper outweighs the right to a future.<\/p>\n

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Stats Tell Why #Iran<\/a>\u2019s Sistan and Baluchestan Province Proved Regime\u2019s Crackdown Uselesshttps:\/\/t.co\/uwtND5xX7S<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 7, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n