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World Suicide Prevention Day 2020

Suicide among youth

Published : Thursday, 10 September, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 529

Suicide among youth

Suicide among youth

It seems alarming that in recent years the youth are found prone to committing or attempting to suicide and the number of suicidal occurrences is increasing over the years. The case is more severe among the age group of 18 to 30 in the country. Particularly, tertiary level students are found to be in high risk. However, in comparison with the male youth, females are the more vulnerable.

It is also evident that the number of victims committing suicide is more in public universities than other educational institutions. For example, recently Imam Hossain, a student of Dhaka University committed suicide after posting a status on Facebook but it was not reported why he had committed suicide.

 According to data, only in 2017 nineteenth students committed suicide, of them   nine were from Dhaka University, seven from Islamic University and the rest three from Bangladesh Agricultural University, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology and Khulna University. Between the years 2017 to 2020 the recorded number of students of public and private universities across the country succumbed to death by suicide compared to the cases of the previous years.
Though in our country committing and attempting to suicide is not a new issue, as in the past it was highly intended by the illiterate community confined to superstitions, now the educated are not exemption from this menace.

The frequent committing of suicide of students has been criticized gruesomely    amid the country and worries are pervading widely among the nation. There raises a pertinent question that despite living amid the plenty of digital supports, why students are choosing the path to self-destruction and why the concerned authorities are making dilly-dally to trace this remedial malady to nip in the bird.

World Health Organization (WHO) reports that suicide is the second leading cause of death of people in the world whose age ranges from 15 to 29 years. It reveals that about 800,000 people die by suicide every year. Furthermore, against each suicide, there are more than 20 suicide attempts. The report also claims that every out of five young people three are mentally vulnerable which is really shocking. 

In the wake of Covid-19 accelerates suicide case in Bangladesh as mental health experiences unavoidable threats bitterly leading people to self-destructive temptations out of fear and uncertainty. According to WHO, approximately 15 million people are suffering from various mental illnesses in Bangladesh. Not in Bangladesh but across the world the case of growing mania to suicide has increased significantly amid the unprecedented corona crisis.

Experts think that the rise of suicide among the youth is occurring for many causes. For example, there may be due to unrequited love, break-ups, academic pressure, family pressure, unemployment and frustration. These issues have far reaching consequences leading ones towards committing suicide.

On top of that different survey findings show that the youth are the greatest in number in using online platforms in the country and gradually they are being isolated from the real touch of world and exposing those more and more to the virtual world, no doubt, it happens due to their overwhelming confinement to online platforms.

They are found behaving in artificial taste leading to the verge of their extinction of moral values which accelerate in choosing self-destruction, feeling hollowness in their minds as they hardly downturn themselves from online stand. They start developing friendship virtually and also breakup virtually and this tendency growing in them discourages them to face the real world.

Similarly, unemployment and frustration are the two issues allied each other as students approaching the end of their academic career in the university are more vulnerable to suicidal behaviour out of merely their fear to face the crisis of unemployment.
Suicide among youth

Suicide among youth


Reports demonstrate that in 2019, the youth unemployment rate was 11.9 per cent that would be likely to be double in 2020 as the number of new job creation has been declined drastically amid the pandemic. Financial insolvency and poor mental health conditions may be mostly among the major causes of committing suicides. 
In the educational institutions, initiatives to supporting students mentally are hardly seen despite many universities are equipped with students counselling centres. Above all, mental health services in the country are still scanty.

As the mania of the youth to embracing suicide has increased considerably, it finds no alternatives to preparing students with moral values and they should be taught that committing suicide is strictly prohibited in all religions. Family support of one's would be the best source of support to protect against depression, and to work for promoting self-respect in every individual.

Our society should help students understand that apart from doing official jobs they have enormous scopes to be self-reliant, so no need to be indulged in frustration.

Moreover, every public university owns a counselling centre for students. Therefore, it would be the responsibility of the authority to ensure easy access of students there. More importantly, the government should take policies to provide the increasing facility on mental health services to all educational institutions giving topmost priority in a bid to contain the rise of this malady.

To this end I like to quote from sociologist Emil Durkheim that suicides are imitative, particularly among young people. So let's halt this menace by hook or by crook.
The writer teaches at
Prime University








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