Undocumented Migrants Will Not Be Registered in Iranian Schools

Ali Bagherzadeh, head of the Literacy Movement Organization, has stated that migrant or refugee students in Iran will not be registered in schools without identity documents. In an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) published on Friday, June 7, he said, "Anyone who registers for educational programs must have their identity clear and possess identity documents. Because if we are to register everyone who claims they do not have an ID, anyone can claim they do not have one." He emphasized that while "we consider education a fundamental right for both Iranian and non-Iranian citizens," there is no reason for acceptance if someone lacks identity documents. Most migrants in Iran are Afghan nationals, and the children of undocumented migrants may not have identity papers. The Islamic Republic government claims that the children of legal migrants in Iran have the right to education just like Iranian citizens. Last week, Ahmad Mohammadi-Far, director general of the Department of Aliens and Immigrants at the Ministry of Interior, announced that migrants and refugees who register their children in school will be protected from deportation from Iran. This comes as Mojtaba Shakri, a member of the Cultural and Social Commission of the Tehran City Council, recently stated that the "problem of registering Afghan children in schools" has not been resolved despite the Supreme Leader's directive. On October 12 of last year, Masoumeh Abad, another member of the Tehran City Council, criticized the registration process for Afghan children in schools, stating that "only 35,000 Afghan students have been registered in schools." This is despite Iranian media reporting in 2015 a directive from the Supreme Leader stating that "no Afghan child, even those who are undocumented and illegally present in Iran, should be deprived of education, and all of them must be registered in Iranian schools." Bagherzadeh also mentioned that Iranian parents do not have the right to prevent their children from receiving an education. According to him, in the past two years, "700 reports" regarding parents preventing their children from attending school have been sent to the judiciary by the Ministry of Education, but "none of these complaints have resulted in a verdict" because "obstacles to students' presence in school have been resolved with judicial intervention." He also emphasized that parents who prevent their children from receiving an education could face three months and one day to six months of imprisonment or a fine of one million tomans.