Driven to suicide

Sakina Saleem, 50, is still preoccupied by the suicide of her eldest daughter, Sommaiya Bibi, last year.



“She swallowed rat poison and was bleeding from all her orifices when they found her. She was only 26. I often think of how her last moments of life must have passed in agony, and all alone,” she told IRIN.



According to her parents, Sommaiya was driven to suicide because she and her two children did not have enough food to eat.



“Her husband was jobless at the time; he beat her when she could not put food on the table... There was constant tension,” said Sakina.



Because suicide can stigmatise a family in Pakistan, she and her husband have become outcasts, even though what happened to Sommaiya is by no means unique.



Suicide statistics



According to the autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 141 people took their own lives in the month up to 25 February. “Thirty-five of these people, including a 12-year-old boy, committed suicide over their failure to find employment or on account of poverty.” HRCP Secretary-General I. A. Rehman told IRIN.



For the month ending 25 January, HRCP recorded 138 suicides. The average monthly number of suicides in the first five months of 2008 was over 150. Figures for the remainder of 2008 are being compiled. In 2007, at least 2,040 people (170 per month) took their own lives, according to HRCP, which believes the figures could be higher given that not all cases are reported.



There is a shortage of reliable data on suicides. The Karachi-based Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH) believes the number could be over 5,000 a year. However, even with this figure, Pakistan’s suicide rate remains lowest in Asia and one of the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Photo: Tariq Mahmood/IRIN

Hard financial times in Pakistan have led some to take their lives

Depression



Syed Haroon Ahmed, president of PAMH, told IRIN: “The rate of depression is very high in Pakistan.” Over 40 percent of people in Pakistan are depressed according to PAMH. “Poverty, food insecurity, social frustrations all contribute to depression and suicide,” said Ahmed.



Insufficient food or money can lead to desperation, as in Mumtaz Bibi’s case: “What am I to do? My husband has hepatitis and cannot work. Each time he works for more than a week he falls ill. I have four small children, and I earn at best only Rs 3,500 [US$45] a month as a washerwoman. How can I support them? I quite often think death, for me, would be easier than life. Some days we do not even have flour to make flat bread.”



Rukhsana Jabeen, who works as a physician at a Lahore clinic, believes people feel “there is no one to hear their woes”. Women, in particular, are vulnerable, she said: “[They] spend all day cooped up in homes and may also suffer domestic violence.”



kh/ar/cb