‘37% of women committing suicide in world are Indians’

 Men Account For 24% Of Cases: Lancet

Every third woman who committed suicide in 2016 was an Indian. Although Indians accounted for 18% of the global population in 2016, a study published in the Lancet Public Health journal on Wednesday showed that India accounted for 37% of the global suicide deaths among women and 24.3% among men. Rakhi Dandona, one of the lead authors of the study, told TOI that married women account for the highest proportion of suicide deaths among women in India. Marriage, she said, is known to be less protective against suicide for women because of arranged and early marriages, young motherhood, low social status, domestic violence, and economic dependence. “Lack of access to mental health facilities for women could also be a factor behind the high incidence of suicide related death among them,” Dandona, a professor at Public Health Foundation of India, added. She said trends in Suicide Death Rate in women suggest the need to further assess the complex relationships between gender and suicidal behaviour in order to facilitate womenspecific suicide prevention strategies. The study, titled ‘Gender differential and state variations in suicide deaths in India: the Global Burden of Diseases Study 1990-2016’, is based on an analysis of suicide death trends across the country. It shows that 63% of all suicide deaths are in the 15-39 age group. “Suicide is the top cause of death in this age group in India. Globally, it is ranked third,” it said. The study said there was an increase of 40% in the number of suicide deaths between 1990 and 2016, with an estimated 2,30,314 deaths in 2016. It found wide variations in the suicide rates across states. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tripura had high rates for both men and women while Kerala and Chhattisgarh had high suicide death rates for men. The suicide death rate for women in India is 15 per one lakh women, which is double than the global suicide rate for women in 2016, which is 7 per one lakh women.

Source: Times of India, 13/09/2018