A Conversation with Social Workers

We were interested in the issue of depression among young women in Iran, particularly in relation to sexual abuse. Though we haven't conducted any research as yet, we were offered the opportunity of visiting two women, one of which is a social worker, the other a psychologist, at their office in the Psychiatry Department of a public hospital in central Tehran. Both women preferred to remain anonymous.

MS - Please tell us a little about yourself and your work, and about what kind of patients you work with.

Social Worker (SW) - I have a BA in the field of social work, and I've been active as a social worker in the psychiatry section of this hospital for 25 years. I'm specialized in family psychology.

People with all sorts of problems come here, men and women of all ages. Most people seek help for an individual member of the family who is in need of psychiatric treatment. Their problems are often related to economic difficulties, and very often, people who come here emphasize their financial difficulties at first, since they don't know how to deal with their relative's illness, or they're embarrassed by it. Since the problems in question rarely stem from a single individual, what we generally try to do is work with families as a whole, rather than with individuals.

We consult them on how to behave towards the person in question, encourage them to consult a specific psychiatrist, to use the clinic, or to use medication. We also provide financial support for those who cannot come up with the expenses.

MS - You don't work with individual patients?

SW - We do. We work with all types and cases, from hyperactive kids to men and women with serious depressions.

We consult them and decide on whether they should stay here at the clinic, or follow a treatment from their homes - you see, actually, it's often some other member of the family, and not only the one we're introduced to that needs treatment. In that case, it's up to the social worker to visit the family, and do research. This happens a lot.

MS - Do the families accept this?

SW - 90% of the time, they do, since they're usually very much in need of help, it's only rarely that we get rejected.

MS - Can you talk about the issue of sexual abuse in the home - we know that the problem is similar to that in the West: it exists, but it's something that just isn't talked about enough.

SW - Yes, it's very frequent, and it mostly remains hidden. Very few people come here for help, but we know there are many more. This has to do with the cultural fabric.

Even when they do come here, at the end of the day, we can't do very much for them. It's something that stays with them for the rest of their lives.

There was the case of a girl who was brought to the hospital following a suicide attempt. Her mother explained that the girl had told her her father had been sexually abusing her from the ages of 9 to 16.

They went to court, but noone believed them, and the court ruled against them. That wasn't surprising. In these cases, the law consults the neighbors, or the school, but nothing ever comes out of that. What's more, if we see the father as a case, as a sociopath in need of treatment, unfortunately, the law sees him as a sane individual and takes his statements at full value. When he went to court, he put on this whole act, and managed to convince them that his daughter was lying.

Once, when she was on leave from the clinic, as part of the therapy, to go home and see for herself how things had evolved, the father saw her on her way to the village, and pursued her and tried to rape her again.

The entire family has been disrupted. The parents are divorced, and the son lives with his father. The mother became very poor, and is publicly disgraced. We found organizations that would help her out financially. But the neighbors still jeer at the mother and her daughters, and sometimes the father and son show up and give them an awful time.

The girl herself is exceptionally smart, and exceptionally hard-working. We had her sent to boarding school. We now have a close working relationship with her, we're still working on the case.

MS - The mother believed her daughter.

SW - Yes, she did, but it's all very bizarre: how can your daughter be molested for eight years without your realizing anything. She's a villagewoman, she may have had a lot of work to do, she's also illiterate and uninformed. But still, it always remained a mystery to us. Maybe she was abused too, or maybe she simply didn't want to see what was happening. We're also working with the older sister, who suffered greatly once the whole thing came out; she's also studying now.

In any case, we've managed to help the younger daughter to the point where she has realized that what happened wasn't her fault. She's back at school, and she's leading her own life.

Her father had actually threatened to kill her, but when she turned 16, she talked nonetheless. That's a revolutionary act, to start talking about something like this. And we try to encourage that.

MS - Generally, does the court ever help in cases like these?

SW - Yes, of course - providing the victim goes to the police straight away, so she can be examined by medical experts.

The problem is that, generally, the courts are very reluctant to pronounce a guilty verdict, since the sentencing for rape is stoning.

MS - Are there any support groups for these women?

SW - I don't know of any. But there must be.

MS - Is depression very common among young women in Iran?

SW - Very much so. But unfortunately, we have no statistics.

[introduces her colleague, a youth psychologist (YP), who has just joined us]

YP - When it comes to depressions, until rahnamaii [junior high school], they're generally ok, but then they succumb to enormous pressure regarding their grades. Their families expect them to be ideal kids, but the pressure ultimately makes them lose in self-confidence, they suffer from self-doubt, and they're always worrying about everything.

Then there's the problem of not being allowed to go out and socialize. Parents will forbid their daughter to go to her best friend's party, just because they happen to know that the host has a big brother who might be hanging around. They forbid them to go anywhere where there are boys, so their daughters' lives consist only of school, home, and the family get-togethers. And then the parents come here and complain about their kid's depression.

The girls don't know how to deal with all this, especially when it comes to their hormonal needs being unanswered to.

SW - And we can't interfere when it comes to this issue. The government wouldn't allow us to.

YP - The only thing we can do is encourage the family to introduce a maximum of girls and boys of their kid's age into the family's social circle. This, at least, is accepted and understood by most families, and even put into practice. Actually, things have generally improved over the course of the last 20 years.

But as for the kids who pursue their needs in secret, they're very stressed about getting caught. Most of our cases [of depression] concern these women.

MS - Having to meet men in secret can also be more dangerous. If you have a boyfriend who is known to everyone, if he's in the public eye, he's obviously far more acountable for his actions.

YP - Teenagers have started going out in groups of 4 or 5, which is a good solution. But when the parents go out and leave the house empty, they party, and something dangerous is prone to happen. Nowadays, many problems come about in this way, whereas just a while ago, they would only go to restaurants and cafés.

It's also the war [against Iraq] that brought certain freedoms with it, it was a period when the family started losing the control it once had.

You see, if you're 13, or 14, you don't know what you're doing, you don't fully understand that you're making a mistake. But this is also a problem among students - even if, fortunately, it usually doesn't come to the worst. We really don't know what to tell parents when it does.

There was the case of one girl of 15, who happened to tell me that she was sexually experienced, and that she was eager to have more experience, and that noone was going to stop her. We had no choice but to tell the parents that they should have her marry. We couldn't see any other solution - there's no place in society for someone like her.

Then there are the many cases of women who go and have their hymen fixed, so as to be 'virgins' again before their wedding. These are often cases of women who had been abandoned by their lover, perhaps because he didn't have the money to get married, at which the woman feels depressed and disappointed because she's lost something, given it away.

TZ - Can you tell us something about the work you do?

YP - I'm a psychologist. I work with many different types of young people, I particularly spend a lot of time in their schools.

The teachers bear much of the responsibilty for the stress teenagers are under. As I said, the pressure on their grades is enormous. Schoolteachers even separate the kids who score 20 out of 20 from the others, and actually flaunt them. I saw a report on TV the other day, a 10 year-old kid who had failed his exams was poisoned by his parents. They had given him poison to drink, saying "take this, we don't want you to become a burden for society".

We have a new phenomenon of schools for exceptionally gifted students (gheire entefaii) - not only do you have to reach 20 to get in, out of those whose average is 20, they make a further selection for those top schools.

And when it comes to competition between students, we also have to remember the unequal conditions, in the sense that some have, say, private tutors and personal computers, while others don't.

Basically, for the entire year preceding university, kids don't have a life of their own - their whole lives are reduced to their schoolbooks. And very often, the mothers stop leading their own lives as well, they stay home and study with the kids. Even those who had grown up leading a closed life, and resolve to do better with their kids, wind up doing this.

MS - I'd asked your colleague to talk about the problem of sexual abuse in the home.

YP - It happens frequently - through brothers, fathers, uncles - but very few victims ever say anything. I've found that it tends to happen in families where there are very close relations with the uncles.

Actually, I have close friend, a poet, who was raped by her father. She once attempted suicide. As a little girl, she was never at peace when she was at home - her father was always looking through the keyhole, or peeking over the shower curtain. She now despises men in general.

Another friend of mine was raped by her brother when she was five. She now has a family of her own, but she's still suffering. She never knew how to tell her parents. She would beg her mother not to leave her alone in the house, but her mother would say, "how come you're so afraid? Your brother's here."

transl.: XX, TZ

Back to top