Special Report: Suicide in Bangladesh

This is link to DI website where our report was published http://www.dispatchesinternational.org/?p=990
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Editor’s Note: The following was a study conducted by students at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh, led by a faculty member,  between 2011-2013. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, names of interviewees have been omitted.

Lead author: Varuni Ganepola*

Contributors: Afsana Sadiq Atuly, Jyoti Pokharel, Neha Rauniyar, Sorya Seang, Dechen Zangmo, and Srijana Shrestha

According to the World Health Organization’s 2013 feature on global suicide, approximately one million people commit suicide per year. In the statistics, however, the statistics from several countries are unavailable. One of these is Bangladesh.

Prevalence of suicide is high in Bangladesh, yet there is not much attention given to this area. There is also paucity of research on suicide in Bangladesh, and the available data is limited. In 2012, the United News of Bangladesh reported that more than 10,000 people commit suicide every year due to various reasons. Suicide is a major cause of mortality in Bangladesh, especially for women. Suicide is illegal and against Islamic beliefs yet, according to a community survey conducted for the journal Medicine in 2012, about 20 percent of emergency admissions in hospitals are due to suicide attempts. Further, a 2003 study from the Health and Science Bulletin reported that suicide accounts for 42 percent of deaths among youths aged 10-19, while 89 percent of suicide-associated deaths are females.

Suicide-associated deaths are higher in Bangladesh than in any other reported Asian country. This data not only depicts suicide as a major public health problem in Bangladesh, but also indicates the prevalence of severe social, personal, and health problems that provoke people to end their life.

Most often, the reasons behind suicide are not explicitly mentioned. Suicide related to mental illness amounts to less than ten percent of suicides in Bangladesh, revealing the many other reasons related to society and family that result in the suicides of otherwise mentally-stable people.

This is where the print media can have a significant role in highlighting suicide as a critical problem in Bangladeshi society and promoting awareness and intervention.

“People are scared of media,” reports a university student in Chittagong, Bangladesh. “Media makes a story even without knowing the intensity or dynamics of the situation.” The impact of media on the aftermath of any tragedy has the potential to inform or to sensationalize, and, in the case of Bangladesh, it is sometimes the only source of data on suicide.

Thus, in an attempt to understand the prevalence and magnitude of suicide in Bangladesh and the role of media in the occurrences, a team of researchers from the Asian University for Women in Chittagong conducted a study of print media presenting suicide in four Bangladeshi newspapers: The Daily Star, The Daily Sun, The New Age and The ProthomAlo. The data was collected from September 2011 until October 2012. The study identified emerging trends and patterns based on gender, age, location, method, and reported causes.

The data from the study tends to agree with findings from experts in the field. Two interviews with experts – a clinical psychologist and a university counselor – further showed the prevalence of suicide among young people and women. Similarly, according to the AUW study, the rate of suicide among women compared to men is 59 percent and 41 percent, respectively.

When interviewed, the university counselor reported that young people in Bangladesh are often motivated by pressure to succeed in the face of exams. “Whenever the Bangladesh secondary school examination result is out, almost every year you will see that there are a few students who failed the exam and attempt suicide,” she says. “They become obsessive about failure and, if they fail, they can’t overcome [it].”

In addition to stress from exams and expectations of success, people in Bangladesh tend to have varying, gender-specific rationale for their suicide attempts. Just as suicide prevalence tends to vary based on gender in other countries, so too does it occur in Bangladesh.

“In the US, more men than women kill themselves, although twice as many women than men attempt suicide,” says the psychologist interviewed for this article. “In China, more women are likely to kill themselves than men. In Japan, men are more likely to kill themselves when they feel they have let the group down or are not contributing to society.”

According to the media study, the majority of male suicides are due to interpersonal conflict among relatives, mainly over land disputes.

The clinical psychologist interviewed for this article speculates that the reasons for women’s suicide is due to issues with marriage and abuse. “It seems that most of the suicides reported are of young women,” she states. “I wonder if they are young wives who are not being treated well, visualize this abuse continuing for the rest of their lives, and opt out.”

Her speculation is confirmed by both the media study and the interview with the university counselor, who reports that “females of Bangladesh have limited right to impose their decisions. Most of the time society and the family head neglect [the women’s] proposed options.” Indeed, the study found a distressing trend in family feuds to be a catalyst for many suicides. “Many married women of Bangladesh need to wait          to visit their maternal home until permission [is granted] from her husband and in-laws,” reports the counselor.

There is a further tragic finding of this study: 28 percent of suicides are under the age of 18. Unfortunately, there is little to no global data focusing on underage suicide and this seemingly prevalent phenomenon in Bangladesh. Underage suicide reported in the media tends to center mostly around exams and school success, as stated above. Additionally, love affairs and depression tend to be concerns of young adults attempting to end their lives.

“Parents of Bangladesh expect so much from their child and sometimes it is beyond their capability,” says the counselor. “People who have strong family support and had positive development are less at risk of suicide,” she reports.

Others, however, may not seem to fit the profile of one who would commit suicide. The university student interviewed for this article had a friend who killed herself. “She was not a person who was supposed to commit suicide,” she recalls.

“She was very caring. She used to think about her family and asked to solve others’ problems.”

“Maybe on that day she became impulsive and made an impromptu decision,” speculates the student when asked about the girl’s motivation. “I really do not know the answer to this question.”

Suicide reporting, due to its sensitivity and the possible implications on the general population, needs to maintain some specific guidelines. However, in terms of Bangladesh, no specific rules are followed. The study highlights firstly, that while reporting incidence of suicide, the media seem to choose an implicit reporting strategy, and provides very limited detail within a small space. The methods of committing suicide are mentioned in some detail, and pictures of victims are never published. Moreover, suicide news is not published in the first or the last pages. These methods, apart from presenting the method of suicide, are a generally positive trend.

A study in Social Science and Medicine from 2006 showed that detailed media coverage of suicide and prominent coverage can influence vulnerable people to imitate these behaviors, leading to copycat suicides. For this reason, it is generally not recommended that details on how people commit suicide should be presented in media.

Secondly, the study of media news on suicide reveals that there are inadequate explanations about the reasons behind committing suicide. If reasons are mentioned, then local people are mainly the group that provides evidence. The media seems to rely heavily on the information provided by local people, but this method alone is insufficient as it can lead to fabricated news and misinformation.

According to the student interviewed above, the media can sometimes become intrusive and that there is a fear that they may report incorrect material. “On that day [of my friend’s suicide], The Daily Star called me,” she says. “The media people were highly irritating and kept calling me. I was scared that they might publish something that I did not even tell, so I did not talk to them”

Thirdly, multiple incidences of suicide are sometimes reported under the same heading within one article. This dismisses the gravity and importance of the issue and respect shown to the victim and their family. It also misleads national statistical data and reduces the intensity of the situation.

“When a young girl commits suicide,” claims the student, “it is attributed to a relationship issue, due to the pattern of the news people disregarding the dead.”

Though it may be problematic to immediately assume the intent behind a suicide, experts tend to see common trends behind the widespread youth suicides in Bangladesh. “I think young people in Bangladesh are so emotional,” reports the counselor. “It has positive and negative effects. Positive in the sense that, due to the emotional factors, they can achieve anything if they want, but negative in the sense that they are so prone to feelings of intense grief, even in a simple, negative occurrence.”

If reasons of the suicide are not known at the time of publication, it is the duty of reporters to investigate the story in collaboration with the police and publish it later when events and reasons are made clear.

However, this does tend to happen in any Bangladesh newspapers. Some detail is provided when the incidence of suicide takes place among high-profile people, but this raises concerns about the value of lives of ordinary people, as reported by the media.

Given what is already known and common about copy-cat suicides and balancing that with identifying risk factors and preventive strategies, the media has an enormous responsibility in ethical presentation of suicide. The newspapers must be careful in not dismissing suicide as unimportant or ‘normalizing’ suicide as something acceptable or as a problem-solving strategy that people use.

Suicide, often, is a traumatizing event for the close relatives and the friends of the victims. In Bangladesh, suicide can cause family stigma as it casts questions over family dynamics and social status within society. This also highlights the importance of publishing information about suicide as accurately and sensitively as possible, as families can be socially and negatively affected by another tragedy because of a suicide within the family.

The study recommends obtaining expert opinions where possible in making the public understand the tragedy and complexity behind suicide. This can be done by consulting those who work closely in this area such as psychologists or NGO workers and academics. Moreover, to ensure the practice of secure, sensitive, and ethical presentation of information related to suicide, the study recommends guidelines for journalists and training on the above.

Also, considering the wellbeing of journalists who investigate and write about suicide is important. The study also recommends publishing contact details of help lines or supportive organizations at the end of each reporting article of suicide. This is so that any reader who is distressed by reading that particular news item or any reader who wishes to obtain more information about suicide, can access some information. This is responsible and ethical media presentation of information. Since it is known that media reporting of suicide is followed by an increase in suicides there is a need to balance public interest against the risk of harm.

To access a suicide hotline in Bangladesh, contact Kaan Pete Roi, Bangladesh’s suicide prevention group. Find Kaan Pete Roi on Facebook.

* To contact the lead author, please email Varuni Ganepola: varuni.ganepola@auw.edu.bd.