The British-Iraninan mum has been languishing in a Tehran jail since she was accused of plotting to topple the Iranian government in April 2016.
While husband Richard campaigns for her release in London, their daughter Gabriella is being cared for by her grandparents in Tehran.
There they managed to find one nursery willing to take her without Iranian identity documents.
“I don’t have any family,” she told classmates there, The Times reports. “My mummy is in prison, my daddy is in London.”
Gabriella is unable to remember a time when she lived with both of her parents together.
I want to fly to London and get the money and bring it back so Mummy can be free
She has not seen her father in person for three years, though she talks to him every evening over Skype.
But Gabriella has nearly completely lost her English and, when they speak, they need a relative to translate their Farsi and English respectively.
Her only remaining English words are “mummy”, “daddy”, “hello”, “cheers” and “I love you so much”.
Last year she was able to spend three whole days from her mum after she was temporarily released from jail.
They were inseparable during that time, sharing a bed every night, but the pain caused by Nazanin returning to jail was so great that the mum has vowed that she won't repeat the experience unless she knows she's not going back.
Now she visits her mum twice a week, every Wednesday and Sunday.
The tiny child is searched thoroughly every time she enters the jail. When she was younger, even her nappy was searched.
The thing I worry about the most with Gabriella is abandonment. Her life is about being separated from her parents. One day she will ask 'why did they do that to me?'
Even her Elsa Frozen doll, a gift from her British grandparents, has to remain in the car during her visits.
“My mummy doesn’t have a lot of books in prison,” she told The Times. Speaking after visiting her mum, she says: “I drew a picture of three people for her. Mummy, Daddy and me.”
On her visits she sits with her mum, often drawing. When she leaves, she calls “Goodbye Mummy, I love you”.
Gabriella, who can only write her Farsi name, is only too aware of her horrendous circumstances.
“I want to fly to London and get the money and bring it back so Mummy can be free,” she said.
Nazanin had been working in an admin role for the Thomson Reuters Foundation but had come to Iran to visit her family when she was arrested.
The charges were related to her previous employment at the BBC World Service that provided training to Iranian journalists.
She has now served more than half of her five-year sentence but an additional case relating to propaganda against the state remains open.
Her desperate husband Richard says he is worried about Gabriella's wellbeing when she is older.
He believes it might affect her negatively to bring her back to the UK away from her grandparents, who have become like parents to her.
“To lose two mothers . . .” he told The Times with a shudder.
“The thing I worry about the most with Gabriella is abandonment. That’s the scar I worry about in the end, that sense of abandonment.
"Her life is about being separated from her parents. One day she will ask 'why did they do that to me?'”
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