Hundreds of schoolgirls are being poisoned in Iran and it’s hard not to immediately assume the nationwide attacks aren’t a deliberate attempt to upend Iran’s ongoing women-led movement to end the current regime. Feminist activists believe the poisonings are intimidation tactics deployed by the government to force girls to stay home, and close their schools.
The poison attacks began in late 2022, on the heels of unprecedented countrywide protests against the Iran’s theocratic government’s denial of women’s basic rights. Since September of last year, the clerical establishment of the country has been challenged by the mass protests which erupted after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for failing to wear her headscarf "properly".
Alongside Iranian women and men, schoolgirls have also played an active role in the uprising, ripping off their headscarves and chanting anti-establishment slogans in videos uploaded on social media. Some Iranians speculate that the girls could be being poisoned as "payback" for their role in the unrest. In the last week alone there have been dozens of newly reported incidents at schools across the country, according to videos and firsthand accounts.
Reports of the exact number of schoolchildren who have been impacted are all over the place. The New York Magazine reports that so far twenty-five provinces and approximately 230 schools have been affected, and more than 5,000 schoolgirls and boys poisoned.
Other government officials and state-run media reports had claimed that more than 1,200 schoolgirls have been sickened following incidents at 60 or more schools across 15 provinces. Iranian human rights groups say more than 7,000 students have been affected.
Iran’s regime is clearly struggling to manage this growing crisis which has already led to fresh protests on the streets. IranWire reports that authorities are giving limited information alongside misleading and contradictory statements about the poisonings.
Going after little girls exposes the deep evil and desperation of the Iranian government. They must really be hanging on by a thread if they are resorting to poisoning school-aged children.
But I say the country’s hardline leaders are right to fear women and girls. Iranian women are amongst the most educated in the region and also make up the majority of STEM graduates. They have been organizing for decades under a government that specifically targets their rights and if anyone is going to bring down this regime, it will be women and girls.
Clearly, the Iranian government is aware and scared to death of this fact. And they should be.