Child Execution in Iran: Furthering Our Understanding of Child Execution as a Form of Structural Violence

Abstract

This article explores how the concepts of strucutral violence and cultural violence can explain the institutionalization and normalization of violence in children’s lives in Iran, including the use of the death penalty, thereby providing a mechanism through which such violence can be challenged. The paper reflects on how an alternative to execution, the payment of blood money, diyah, mitigates but does not eradicate harms caused to child offenders convicted of Qesas offenses and how diyah is used by Iranian authorities to avoid fulfilling their legal obligations to children who offend. The article argues that eradicating child execution and the payment of blood money is dependent on challenging the structural violence that is embedded within Iran’s legal structures and it reflects on recent improvements in the legal system.