The following is an account from a telephone conversation between the father of a 14-year-old adolescent from Ilam and the Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch (IKHRW). The father contacted the helpline published on the organization’s website to seek guidance, trace his child, and voice his grief over the boy’s disappearance and recruitment into the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), an armed Kurdish opposition group based in Iraqi Kurdistan. The text has been localized for clarity and readability while preserving all factual content.
“My son was only 14 years old. He kept asking me to buy him a motorcycle. As an employee, I had the financial means, but I always told him he needed to reach the legal age of majority and obtain a driver’s license first. Later, he asked for a car. What responsible parent buys a motor vehicle for an underage child without a license? If he had injured or killed someone, how could I live with that?”
He described the day his son went missing: “One day, I was informed he went to school but never returned. I hold the school partially responsible; had they notified me within the first two hours of his absence, I could have intervened before he was taken across the border. By the time I found out, he had already been moved out of the country.”
Addressing the emotional toll and social stigma, he noted: “We are a respectable family, and I do not want our names exposed. Three months have passed since his departure, and his mother has been hospitalized due to severe emotional distress.”
“I have no idea where my child is being kept today. They told me he ended up with PAK. I had never heard that name before and initially thought it implied something good, only to realize it is an armed militant group. We live in Ilam, a small town. May God hold those responsible who took my child. My son is ill; he suffers from epilepsy and experiences nighttime seizures. He also has severe vision impairment requiring high-prescription glasses. He is a sick adolescent who can barely manage on his own. I still do not know how he reached Iraq or who orchestrated his departure.”
Regarding the timeline and psychological strain, he added: “He left home three days before the military strikes on Iran by Israel and the United States. I am under immense mental pressure. We are a family of reputation, and when I realized he had joined an armed group, the shock was so overwhelming that for a brief moment, I wished he were dead—a thought no parent should ever have, but the distress was unbearable.”
“My family is neither uneducated nor broken. If my relatives find out, it could ruin our family standing. But I know my son was deceived. I have not been able to speak to him even once. I have searched everywhere—contacting the Iranian Police, the KRG Police, and the Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq—filing official missing person complaints, but no information has been provided.”
“I appeal to the Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch. You state on your platform that you assist families affected by these armed groups. Please help my wife and me. We have had zero news about our child or his living conditions. Our only demand is to know his whereabouts and secure his safe return home.”
The audio recording of this phone call is securely preserved in the archives of the Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch. Subject to confidentiality and privacy safeguards, it can be made available to researchers, legal experts, and human rights advocates upon formal request for research and verification purposes.
