Iran has set up a suicide-prevention task force, the vice president for women and family affairs said on Monday, as the government prepares a national plan after rising cases among students and health workers.
Zahra Behrouzazar told an event at Iran University of Medical Sciences that a “Suicide Prevention Command Center” had been formed in Tehran province and would be expanded nationwide.
“Each of us is responsible for reducing suicide and our hope is that suicides will reach zero. This is an ambitious goal and requires a national program,” she said, according to state news agency IRNA. She described suicide as “a form of violence against oneself” and said prevention requires both “structural reforms and changes in mindset”.
Behrouzazar said Iran’s Social Emergency service -- a crisis intervention network run by the State Welfare Organization -- had been “65% effective” in its interventions and operates a 24-hour response in 378 cities.
“We cannot place all the burden on the Social Emergency; the supportive role of families matters,” she added.
Hassan Mousavi Chelek, the Welfare Organization’s deputy for social health, told the same conference the Social Emergency has worked on suicide prevention since 1999 and now runs fixed centers, mobile teams and the 123 hotline around the clock in 378 cities, IRNA reported.
He said interventions related to suicidal thoughts and attempts had increased fivefold between 2021 and 2024, which he said showed both need and growing public trust in the service.
Azarakhsh Mokri, a psychiatrist and associate professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, said social factors “more than medical illness” drive suicide risk, citing loneliness, unemployment and relationship breakdowns. He urged broader use of data and new technologies in prevention and cautioned against “over-medicalizing” suicide, IRNA reported.
The policy announcements come amid a spate of reported cases. Local rights outlet Haalvsh said on Monday that a farmer in Kahnuj, southeastern Iran, died by suicide at a local agriculture department office following alleged economic pressures, and that an internal-medicine specialist at Saravan’s Iranmehr Hospital was found dead in her dormitory after taking medication.
Also on Monday, a 26-year-old janitor who set himself on fire outside the governor’s office in Shadegan, southwestern Khuzestan province, died of his injuries, rights activists said.
In a separate report, a student collective said a female student died by suicide at Mohaghegh Ardabili University, calling for better campus support; the university has not issued an official statement.
Last year, a senior official at the prosecutor-general’s office said Iran records roughly 130,000 suicide attempts annually with about 7,000 deaths, and that suicide is the third-leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 24, according to reports from September 2024.
The official, Gholam-Abbas Torki, added that while Iran’s overall suicide mortality rate -- around 6.6 to 9.1 per 100,000 depending on the estimate -- is below the global average, it has been on an upward trend and requires scientific and coordinated prevention.
