What makes teenagers take their own lives?

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Xari Jalil
On April 13, 2009, Iftikhar, a man in his early twenties, shot at teenaged Ayesha after she rejected his proposal for marriage. Ayesha was shifted to Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC), where she soon succumbed to her injuries. Overcome by the agony of rejection and the guilt of having killed a beloved, Iftikhar later shot himself.

Suicide has now become a common occurrence, especially in the busy and congested life of Karachi. Even in these circumstances, it has been observed that suicide committed by an adult has usually been given more importance by the media and other institutions, rather than the phenomenon of ‘child suicide’, or suicide committed by youth.

In medical terms, risk factors for suicide include mental disorders such as depression, personality disorder, alcohol dependence, or schizophrenia, and some physical illnesses, such as neurological disorders, cancer, and HIV infection.

Despite problems pertaining to bio-chemical responses, children, or youth who kill themselves are usually propelled by reasons other than simply medical ones. “Young people, mostly teenagers, who kill themselves, do so usually because they feel increasingly disheartened by their parents’ attitude towards them. They then feel insulted and humiliated,” said Tarannum, an activist associated with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

She said that it is hard to particularly collect statistics for child suicide, because in most news reports, the ages of the victim are not mentioned. This is perhaps the reason why no compilation of child suicide incidence and rates exist at the moment, she said.

Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) Regional Manager Iqbal Detho explained to The News that the dimensions of suicide have changed over time, and simple financial or economic explanations cannot clarify why young people are killing themselves. “Unsatisfactory living conditions are of course a major cause,” Detho said.

“The difference here is that in many cases, it is not the young people who are earning and feeling the pressure. It is usually parents who make them feel the pressure, by letting them know openly that they are a liability. In cases such as these, of course they are also neglected by the parents emotionally and therefore feel alienated and hurt,” he said.

Detho said that another major reason attributed to suicide was sexual abuse among children, which makes the child lose his self respect and in turn, loses his respect for life. He largely blames the government in this context: the Child Rights Policy was formed in 1981 through an executive order, but it was never implemented in Sindh and Balochistan. This policy protects children in all places, educational, domestic, and others, and consolidates his or her rights as a child, regardless of being homeless, orphaned or not.

Human Rights organisations, including SPARC, are now proposing a bill called National Commission for Child Welfare and Development-2009 under the Rights of Children Act so as to ensure that systemic issues can be reassessed and revisited.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=197945