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Kazakhs More Prone to Suicide

Kazakhstan has the highest suicide mortality rate in Central Asia


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  16 forum posts

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Kazakhstan has the highest suicide mortality rate in Central Asia,

WHO fact sheet (PDF)
Kazakhstan: Suicide rates
(Click to download)

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), suicide accounts for about a million deaths annually, with the five countries having the highest rates being Guyana, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Swaziland and Russia, ranging from 32.5 to 25.3 per 100,000 population. By comparison, the rates for Central Asian countries are as follow:

  • Kazakhstan: 27.5
  • Turkmenistan: 10.0
  • Uzbekistan: 9.3
  • Kyrgyzstan: 8.2
  • Afghanistan: 5.5
  • Tajikistan: 4.0

WHO statistics reveal, even more alarmingly, that suicide is one of the top causes of death worldwide among youth aged 15-29 years (following closely behind road injury and HIV related deaths).

Challenges represented by social stigma, the taboo to openly discuss suicide, and low availability of data are still to date obstacles leading to poor data quality for both suicide and suicide attempts. Nevertheless, the statistics are commonly used to directly influence decisions about public policy and public health strategies.

Kazakhstan has highest number of recorded suicides among girls aged 15 to 19, and for boys, it is the second highest after Russia. A UNICEF report of 2009 shows, between 1999 and 2008 the number of suicides among young people of the country increased by 23%.

According to Raisa Sher, head of the country’s education ministry’s child protection committee, there are several factors behind such high rates of suicide among people of a young age, such as:

  • School bullying
  • Absence or loss of values
  • Falling standards of social behaviour
  • Alienation

In the World, Approximately 0.5-1.4% of people die by suicide, roughly 12 per 100,000 individuals per year. Three quarters of suicides globally occur in the developing world. Rates of completed suicides are generally higher in men than in women, ranging from 1.5 times as much in the developing world to 3.5 times in the developed world. Europe had the highest rates of suicide by region in 2015. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million non-fatal attempted suicides every year. Non-fatal suicide attempts may lead to injury and long-term disabilities.

Suicide games

Last year, a rash of suicide games on social media has caused panic among parents and raised alarm throughout Kazakhstan.. The wave began in 2015 in Russia, where local media reported about secret communities for teens that invited them to participate in a dangerous game. In each case, the players must complete 50 tasks, beginning with cutting a vein and using a blade to draw an image of a blue whale on their hand. Suicide is the last mandatory task and if not completed, the game creators threaten to “deal” with the player’s family.

Consequently, Kazakh authorities have blocked access to content posted by so-called death groups on social networks such as VKontakte. Experts are also calling on Kazakh citizens to check their children’s phones to protect them from games such as Siniy kit (“a blue whale”), Tikhiy dom (“a quiet house”), More kitov (“a sea/a bunch of whales”) and Razbudi menya v 4:20 (“wake me up 4.20 AM”). About 300 “a sea of whales” communities and 450 “quiet house” groups have been discovered on VKontakte.

Death by suicide is the ultimate Stage 4 event in the progression of many mental health conditions, whether or not they have ever been recognised and labelled as such. A 2014 overview pointed at the economic crisis’ years (2007-2008) as a period from which suicide rates surged globally. ■


  Forum posts

  • When winter arrives in Kazakhstan, night falls quickly, especially in the northernmost regions. You don’t have much sunlight during the day. This makes people depressed, especially in the cities rather than in the countryside.

  • Боже мой, Боже мой. Мы в чем-то первые!

  • Suicide rate is increasing day by day in all countries due to the frustrations of modern life. We should do something to reduce the chronic stress that leads to depression. We are overly concerned about marginal things like microwaves or radioactivity, but not about this much bigger problem.

  • As an Iranian woman who is a refugee in UK, and given the situation in my country which I fled and the family and friends I left behind, I should perhaps think about committing suicide. But no, because I still have hope. You commit suicide when there is no hope.

  • Curiously, the richest country in Central Asia, namely Kakzhstan, has the highest suicide rate, while Tajikistan, which is the poorest, has the lowest.

  • The moral of the story... Money does not make you happy. If you are rich but have no hope for a better tomorrow, money will not help you. Money will not give you hope of surviving, of avoiding disease, of being reunited with the one you loved...

  • Suicides in Sri Lanka, mostly because of the strict parents! When children do something bad parents impose strict punishments, and children think that’s the end of their lives! They feel ashamed to face the society! I think our culture is the issue!

  • In Turkmenistan, they don’t commit suicide. They critisize theur President Berdimuhamedov if they want to!

  • "But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself."
    — Albert Camus

  • "The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."
    — Nietzsche

  • Suicide is not only illegal here in the US because it causes "mental distress" to the victim’s family and friends, but more importantly it makes one less taxpayer.

  • "If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide." — Mahatma Gandhi

  • What about the "Suicide of White Race"?

  • Sociologists in general believe that when society robs people of self control, individual dignity, or a connection to something larger than themselves, suicide rates rise.

  • Don’t commit suicide, get a jab instead.

  • It’s all about the figures. A "serious" analysis of the causes is needed. I underline the word "serious" because I read a lot of bullshit and trivialities about it.

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