Slashdot Mirror
Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan
darkmonkeh writes "The number of Japanese who killed themselves in online suicide pacts rose sharply last year, according to the BBC. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone. These Japanese internet 'suicide clubs' accounted for at least 26 deaths in the last 2 months."
Then I visited East Africa where I found a priviledged few among a sea of poverty and hopelessness. But what struck me is the ease the Africans took life as. They seemed to be happy, always thinking that the following day would be a better one. They even shared the little they had, something very rare in a major city in the USA for example.
This makes me wonder....What is it that we in the west miss out? Why is it that suicide rates in the so-called first world are significantly higher than those in the third world? Can we still call ourselves developed? I doubt.
Where is the world going?
Some of the culturally insensitive postings by slashdot readers is a bit disturbing. Having lived in Japan for several years, it is clear that Western morals regarding suicide do not necessarily apply in this complex and ancient culture.
In addition, readers need to do their homework before posting factual errors or made-up numbers regarding its prevalence. More than 40% of the suicides in Japan are motivated by health-related reasons (older people whose health is failing). These suicide pacts comprise a very small percentage (less than 1%).
Anyway, below are some statistics from 2003 in an article that appeared in The Japan Times on July 23, 2004:
"A record 34,427 people committed suicide in Japan last year. (2003)
The figure, up 7.1 percent from the previous year, remained above 30,000 for the sixth consecutive year, the National Police Agency said in a report released Thursday.
The report says 8,897 people killed themselves over financial difficulties, up 12.1 percent from a year earlier and topping 8,000 for the first time since the NPA began keeping statistics on suicides in 1978.
Suicides motivated by financial difficulties accounted for a quarter of all suicides in the year, comprising the second-largest group, compared with 11.2 percent in 1994.
Almost 60 percent of the suicides in 2003 were by people in their 50s and older, it said.
Health reasons were the motivation for the largest number of suicides in 2003, prompting 15,416, or 44.8 percent of the total, to take their lives. Some 8.5 percent committed suicide due to family problems.
Men accounted for a record 72.5 percent of all suicides in 2003, contributing to the wider gap -- 6.97 years -- between the average life expectancies of men and women, as released earlier this month by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry."
POLICE: As if your life didn't suck enough, suicide is illegal, so now you have to go to jail.
Logic at work.
That's because of our views about suicide. It reminds me of some show about religion I once saw on the History Channel. A Rabbi was explaining his religion's policy on suicides, and it went something like this: A person who commits suicide can not be given full religious rites upon their death, but a special exemption is made for mentally-ill people, and all people who commit suicide are considered to be mentally ill. It was a cute little end-around their own beliefs, but I digress.
It's not that the US wants to throw suicidal people in jail, it's that if it's not illegal they have absolutely no way to have a judge force a suicidal person into counseling or psychiatric observation/care. The belief in the US is that something has to be wrong with you if you want to kill yourself, and they want to treat that. Whether or not that is a proper view is open for debate.