<![CDATA[[caption id="attachment_132827" align="aligncenter" width="706"] The cultural and socio-economic causes of suicide[/caption]
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that approximately 1 million people worldwide die each year from suicide. Many readers will be shocked to know that five out of the ten deaths recorded as daily average are caused by suicide. We may wonder as to what drives such a large number of our compatriots, many of them very young, to take their own lives.
It seems rather far-fetched for people who have not been touched by the cruel hand of suicidal depression and despair before. For many of these unfortunate people, suicide was never their primary option but a suicidal person can be faced by such inner turmoil that the resort to self-harm or even death, seems a great relief. What is more disturbing is the involvement of young people, some as young as ten or eleven years, in suicides.
Underlying social factors
Why would someone want to end his or her own life? There are numerous reasons for this terrible situation. They differ on basis of sex, age, culture and level of development in which a person finds his or herself. The easy availability of means and coaching on social media in recent times makes it even more disturbing.
In Ghana, seemingly insignificant things have been known to drive people into suicidal tendencies. Issues that usually escape the attention of friends, close relatives and work colleagues. For instance, certain aspects of our rich Ghanaian culture often trigger the development of mental health problems and suicidal tendencies, especially in young men. For instance, men are supposed to be the stronger partners in marriage. That perception requires the man of the family to behave in a certain way and put on a brave face even when things are not going well socially or financially. A man is expected to exercise power over his wife, be the higher wage earner and bear the lions share of the familys finances. A man is expected to be a high achiever.
Young men who do not live up to these societal expectations often feel unwanted and isolated and think themselves as failures, leading to suicidal thoughts. As powerhouses it is deemed weak for men to seek the needed professional or even friendly assistance. Cultural norms make it difficult for men to open up and seek help with the fear of their privacy being violated. There is a rather archaic Ghanaian philosophy that says ‘men do not cry’. As a result, these issues end up being bottled up leading to serious mental health problems.
The youth
Our Ghanaian culture also puts a lot of pressure on young people, particularly teenagers. Our everyday lives keep on changing making it difficult for teenagers to fit in. In Ghana, all teenagers must go to school and be on top of whatever they do. Limited facilities within our institutions of higher learning mean that there is intense competition for admission to the relatively fewer good senior high schools and universities available. This intense competition often leaves girls, in particular into vulnerable positions whereby they must offer sexual favours to unscrupulous adults, especially teachers, with promises of better grades or assistance towards admission to good schools. Many such young girls often become pregnant and in in their attempts to hide their conditions from parents and guardians, resort to unsafe abortions or simply take their own lives, to end it all.
For many teenagers and even pre-teens, the availability of sexually explicit videos and images on social media often lead to experimentations that mess up their schooling, leading to depression and other mental health problems and even suicides. Parental and peer group expectations of certain career paths and social status sometimes lead to lack of personal fulfilment. Such situations can also lead to depression and the resort to self-harm. In other instances, career paths are forced on young people, especially by middle class parents and other family members. Such situations can lead to lack of self -esteem and self-harm.
In some Ghanaian homes the relationships between parents and sometimes among siblings constant fights and yelling, unnecessary comparisons to other siblings or relatives, unceasing arguments with parents and guardians, constantly push young people and teenagers in particular, to the wall. These conditions can lead to bouts of depression, self-harm and suicide.
Religion is an important part of Ghanaian culture. However, certain religious practices like anointing, false prophesies, and deliverance also contribute to mental health challenges and suicide. Charlatans promise young people mouth-watering overseas travelling opportunities which are rarely ever fulfilled, thus leading their victims into depression, mental health problems and suicide. Then there are those who dabble in occultic practices that sometimes lead to depression and suicidal tendencies.
Economic factors.
Some recent studies have highlighted the role of economic factors like hunger, poverty and unemployment in mental health and of suicidal behaviour. Economic adversities have been found to result in feelings of entrapment, helplessness and hopelessness. These in turn, give rise to depression and suicidal tendencies. In times of economic hardship, many people, particularly men, often find it difficult to meet family needs. The resulting shame and despair, in extreme cases, force people to decide to end their lives.
For example, a young peasant farmer takes a loan to cultivate cash crops. Unfortunately, because of ours is largely rain-fed agriculture, if the rains do not fall adequately, crops fail and our young friend is saddled with debts. For some young people, the shame and stress of indebtedness with no hope of repayment sometimes leads to a resort to suicide.
Then there is the young person whose parents sell the family heirloom to educate him or her hoping that his or her university education would land them a well-paid job. This young person graduates and is unable to find the dream or even the most basic of job, to earn a living in order to attain some level of independence and self-worth. Meanwhile they see their friends, some of whom were less bright than they were moving ahead in life. This often leads to some young women taking to prostitution while others hop from one married man to another, to keep body and soul together. The result for such young people is sometimes bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts.
There are other socio-economic causes of suicide, such as age-related emotional and body pains, breakup of marriages, loss of loved one, rape, examination failure, racism and experiences of discrimination. With all these traumatic events that tend to trigger mental health problems, there are no support systems to help people who become suicidal. Lots of lives have been lost because there are no fall back positions for the unfortunate compatriots who fall victim to these situations.
The primary support system being family and friends have been ripped apart by superstition, social media and societal distractions. We have been so totally engrossed in the rat race that the operating axiom seems to be, ’Each one for himself, God for us all.
Something has got to give. There is the need for public education on this troubling menace. There must be help lines, life lines, anti-suicide advocacy, structured free counselling websites. There is an urgent need for work place discussion groups, school counselling departments and special clinics within hospitals and local areas.
New beginning
Suicide is probably as big an issue today as HIV Aids was some thirty years ago. It affects people in all strands of society and its effects are particularly devastating among young people around the world. The causes are many and varied. However, many cases of self-harm or suicide could be avoided if those with mental health problems could find the appropriate help.
In Ghana, our culture and lifestyles are largely responsible for a high proportion of the socio-economic issues that drive people to self-harm and suicide. Culture is dynamic, which means we can do away with some of the cultural practices and perceptions that push people to the brink, often resulting in suicide. Our attitudes to everyday life in no small measure contribute to the pressures that lead some people to suicide. We need to do some soul searching as a people so we can begin to see ourselves as part of the problem and therefore necessarily part of the solution as well.]]>
