From plastic “keys to paradise” to war-themed video games, a decades-long strategy reveals how the Iran regime exploits children to sustain its war narrative
For the Iran regime, war is not merely a contingency—it is a strategic instrument. Its importance is so central that even children are drawn into its orbit, transformed into tools serving broader political and ideological objectives. This is not a recent development but part of a continuous cycle that began during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and persists today in more sophisticated forms.
From the era of child soldiers to modern propaganda campaigns, the regime has consistently used adolescents to legitimize a militarized social order. Even children killed in conflict are not spared; their deaths are repurposed into narratives that reinforce the regime’s ideology. In this system, the child is not only a victim of war but also an instrument within it.
During the 1980s, one of the most notorious practices was the distribution of plastic “keys to paradise” to child soldiers—symbols promising spiritual reward in exchange for sacrifice. Many of these children were sent into minefields with minimal training, effectively used to clear paths for advancing forces. Today, although the methods have changed, the underlying logic remains the same. Teenagers are now encouraged to participate in urban security roles, including street checkpoints, keeping them embedded within the regime’s security structure.
This continuity is also visible in cultural production. While the effects of recent war strikes still linger across Iranian cities, the Iran National Game Development Institute—affiliated with the Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation—has launched its first “game jam” of the year under the theme “Child and War.” Developers have been asked to portray the experience of war and childhood through video games.
This initiative is not an isolated event; it is the latest link in a long chain of efforts to turn children into raw material for legitimizing war. Where earlier decades relied on physical mobilization and symbolic indoctrination, today’s approach integrates digital media, targeting younger generations through immersive storytelling.
A closer look at the regime’s governance model reveals the systematic nature of this strategy. From the early years after the 1979 revolution, children were incorporated into state narratives and mobilization efforts. During the Iran-Iraq War, this reached its most explicit form. Schools became extensions of the battlefield. Students were given plastic piggy banks shaped like hand grenades and encouraged to fill them with money for the war effort. The symbolism was deliberate: the regime sought to link childhood itself with instruments of violence.
Students were also required to write letters to soldiers at the front, embedding emotional participation in the war from an early age. The concept of martyrdom was institutionalized within the education system and given a central role in shaping young minds.
The most iconic figure of this model was Hossein Fahmideh, a 13-year-old who, in 1980 in Khorramshahr, reportedly detonated grenades under an Iraqi tank. Ruhollah Khomeini described him as a “leader,” and his image was displayed in schools across the country. In his wake, thousands of teenage volunteers were sent into minefields, their bodies used to clear paths for adult soldiers. The story of Fahmideh became less a historical account and more a constructed narrative aimed at normalizing and glorifying the use of children in war.
Beyond the battlefield, adolescents were also integrated into internal security structures. They participated in patrols, staffed checkpoints, and appeared prominently in public political events such as Friday prayers. The regime consistently projected an image of a unified revolutionary front in which children were visibly included.
Four decades later, this pattern continues. During the most recent conflict, teenagers were again deployed at urban checkpoints, some becoming targets of drone strikes. At the same time, another process unfolds: children who are victims of war are transformed into symbols within the regime’s narrative machinery.
On February 28, 2026, at the outset of renewed conflict, the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab was hit by a missile, killing a number of students. This tragedy demands accountability and justice. Yet the regime’s response has followed a familiar path—not transparency, but glorification.
Murals depicting the faces of the Minab children have been unveiled, and the site has been turned into a “cultural hub” hosting ideological workshops for children. The Minister of Education has announced plans to include the Minab story in school textbooks. Meanwhile, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has proposed turning the school into a permanent memorial along state-organized war tourism routes.
Now, with the “Child and War” game jam, the Minab narrative is set to reach yet another audience: gamers. The dead child is transformed into a digital character, ensuring that the cycle of representation—and exploitation—continues.
What emerges is a pattern of adaptation without change. The logic of the 1980s remains intact, but the tools have evolved. Where once posters and school rituals mobilized a generation, today digital platforms and video games extend that reach into new domains.
The trajectory from grenade-shaped piggy banks to war-themed game development is not simply a story of technological change—it reflects continuity in how childhood itself is used. Over four decades, Iranian children have rarely been treated as children in the full sense. Instead, they have been systematically repurposed as instruments for legitimizing violence and sustaining conflict.
In this system, even the most basic right—the right to a childhood free from militarization and exploitation—is denied. The result is a structure that does not merely wage war externally, but embeds it into the very fabric of growing up.
