Two Koreas top of global suicide charts, for different reasons
Poverty, stress and reluctance to seek help among factors behind grim toll
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 06 September, 2014, 5:21am
UPDATED : Saturday, 06 September, 2014, 5:21am
Agencies
WHO director general Margaret Chan said the suicide prevention report is a call for action to address a large public health problem which has been shrouded in taboo for far too long.
South Korea's problem with suicides is well known. But self-killing is even worse in its northern neighbour, making the peninsula one of the most suicidal regions in the world.
An estimated 9,790 suicides took place in North Korea in 2012, with roughly equal numbers of males and females killing themselves, according to a report released this week by the World Health Organisation.
The report acknowledged that acquiring data was difficult, and that it had arrived at its North Korean estimate by factoring in a range of statistically predictive factors.
The report also found that the suicide rate for Japan is roughly 60 per cent higher than the global average, with 18.5 people out of every 100,000 committing suicide in 2012.
In Japan, 29,442 people committed suicide in 2012 - 20,888 men and 8,554 women - which translates into an age-adjusted rate of 18.5 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants, about 60 per cent higher than the global average of 11.4. The rate compares with rates of 12.1 in the United States, 7.8 in China and 28.9 in South Korea.
The information was part of the UN body's first-ever report on suicide prevention, which estimated that 804,000 people worldwide took their own lives in 2012. That works out to roughly one person every 40 seconds, leading the WHO to call on each country to combat suicide with urgency.
"This report is a call for action to address a large public health problem which has been shrouded in taboo for far too long," WHO director general Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun said.
The report found a link between mental illnesses such as depression, and suicide, noting that there were also many cases of impulsive suicides stemming from financial and medical problems.
Financial hardship is a common motivator for suicide. South Korea's suicide rate began climbing around the economic crisis of the late 1990s and has continued to increase. Many who took their own lives had expressed hopelessness in a society where there is stiff competition for white-collar jobs.
Suicide rates were higher among gays and lesbians, refugees, incarcerated people and those with experience of war or disasters.
Analysts say North Koreans may be driven to suicide by poverty, and the psychological stress of living in a restrictive environment.
The director of research and strategy at US-based NGO Liberty in North Korea, Sokeel Park, said some deaths reported as suicides could have been people who died while in state custody. "It might be like in East Germany under the Stasi, where if someone died during an interrogation or while detained they just called it a suicide," Park said.
Experts also point to taboos about seeking assistance. A psychiatrist at the National Medical Centre in Seoul, Kim Hyun-chung, said: "Koreans are reluctant to speak openly about their problems out of fear of being considered weak or unstable, and that just makes their situations worse."
The WHO called for authorities to bring down suicide rates by enhancing the early diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and arranging follow-up care for people who attempt suicide.
In North Korea, mental health care is scarce and suicide is among many negative aspects of society that the government tries to keep quiet.
According to the report, suicide was the second leading cause of death of people between the ages of 15 and 29 in 2012. The highest rate across age groups was among people over 70 years of age.
The most common suicide methods globally were pesticide poisoning, hanging and firearms. The report noted the prevalence of suicides by gas poisoning in Japan.
Associated Press, The Guardian
