Letters to the Editor
Donna Darko
Published Letters: 44
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China is the only country in the world
[Read the article: Big trouble in rural China]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's significant because China is the only country in the world in which women kill themselves more than men. A lot of this has to do with easy access to lethal pesticides as 90% of the suicides occur in rural areas:
Suicide Rampant Among China's Rural Women, Urban Middle Class
Chinese women are committing suicide at an alarming rate, especially in rural areas left out of the country's economic boom. But experts say economic success is also taking its toll in the form of growing numbers of suicides among the urban middle classes.
Recent studies of depression and suicide in China have revealed a unique social pattern: China is the only country in which the suicide rate for females is higher than for males.
"I believe that the high suicide rate among Chinese women has to do with the low status of women throughout Chinese society," counselling psychologist Zhan Chuhua told a recent Investigative Report series on mental health.
Women face major hurdles
"Often Chinese women lack resources to support them, so that when they run into problems, especially in their marriages, it is easy for them to become victims," said Zhan, who has worked on the Kangning Mental Health Hotline in the southern city of Guangzhou for many years.
"In the workplace too, it is far more difficult for women than it is for men. For example, if a working woman gets pregnant, she will find it very difficult. And the likelihood of being on the receiving end of harassment is much higher for a woman. So all of this adds to the difficulties in the life of a Chinese woman, so that's probably why the suicide rate is higher," he added.
Around 90 percent of Chinese women who end their own lives live in the countryside, where poverty is ubiquitous, in stark contrast to the booming urban regions along China's coast.
As the population continues to rise, suicides of Chinese women now make up half the world total of female suicides. A high proportion of these suicides are among young women, in the 16-26 age range.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2006/08/30/china_suicide/
China also has the highest female suicide mortality rate in the world compared to any other country. In urban middle-class areas, pressure from work inside and outside the home is the main contributing factor:
China Has World's Highest Female Suicide Rate
A recent article in the official People's Daily newspaper highlighted the problem. It quoted women's issues expert Lin Yalan as saying that even better-off urban Chinese women face greater pressures than men.
"Women have to face the same pressure in work as men as well as being expected to be good housewives at home," she told the paper. "Family violence also contributes to the cause. In addition, women have to face pressures from children. Once children encounter problems in study or in life, mothers can find it easy to feel guilty and blame themselves," the paper quoted Lin as saying.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/social/2003/09/17/115741/
Anyone getting sick of this excuse (from the first article) as men and women everywhere die including in the United States?
There is still insufficient understanding of this sort of problem among the general population
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Indian teen girls have highest suicide rate in the world (Lancet)
[Read the article: Big trouble in rural China]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]According to the British journal, The Lancet, Indian teens have world's highest suicide rate. The global suicide rate stands at 14.5 deaths per 100,000. The average suicide rate for young Indian women aged between 15 to 19 is 148 per 100,000. The Lancet is currently carrying out studies in India, China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
Indian teens have world's highest suicide rate
The highest suicide rate in the world has been reported among young women in South India by a new study. The research is of major importance, according to the World Health Organization, as it brings to light Asia's suicide problem.
The average suicide rate for young women aged between 15 to 19 living around Vellore in Tamil Nadu was 148 per 100,000. This compares to just 2.1 suicides per 100,000 in the same group in the UK.
The global suicide rate stands at 14.5 deaths per 100,000, with suicide the fourth leading cause of death in the 15 to 19 age group. However, in the Tamil Nadu study, suicide was the number one cause of death among these adolescents.
Notably, young women were much more likely to kill themselves than young men - the reverse of the rest of the world. In Western countries, men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women.
"I was surprised to find the rates were so staggeringly high," says paediatrician Anuradha Bose, who led the study at the Christian Medical College in Vellore.
Major problem
Jose Bertolote, co-ordinator for the management of mental and brain disorders at the World Health Organization in Switzerland says: "I very much praise the authors for having done this. It highlights a major problem."
Bertolote says work in countries like Vietnam have indicated disturbing levels of suicide but until now there had been no studies published in major, English-language journals.
Bose's work, published in The Lancet, follows is the second study to reveal more women killing themselves than men. The first was in China. But it also tallies with unpublished work the WHO is currently carrying out in India, China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. "This is something striking, unfortunately for women," says Bertolote.
"I wonder if it's just another manifestation of the gender bias," says Bose. She believes stress factors such as family conflicts, domestic violence, academic failures, unfulfilled romantic ideals and mental illness all contribute to the high levels of teen suicide. She also suspects that poor countries that are developing rapidly may suffer higher suicide rates.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4846
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Sexism
[Read the article: Big trouble in rural China]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So
1. China is the only country in the world in which women kill themselves more than men.
2. China has the highest female suicide rate of any country.
3. Indian teen girls have the highest overall suicide rate in the world.
I have a feeling this has nothing to do with pesticides and everything to do with sexism.