According to media reports, there are as many as seven or eight suicide cases per day in Taiwan.
Moreover, some parents go a step further and also murder their own innocent, young children before they commit suicide themselves.
Some people tie their children onto their bodies and jump into the sea together. Some first poison their children before taking poison to kill themselves, and some push their children off a high building before leaping to their deaths. These cases have resulted in many tragedies.
Apart from a few young children and callow teenagers, who kill themselves out of ignorance or curiosity by imitating adults, and those who momentarily take some minor matter to heart and step onto the road of no return, behind the vast majority of suicides there are tragic stories that deserve our sympathy and help. First we must understand the reasons behind suicide, and only then can we provide an effective helping hand.
Some youths commit suicide because of heavy pressure from schoolwork or test scores that are less than ideal. Some can't bear the scolding from their parents, and some are tormented by their emotions. The education authorities should complete the education reform program as soon as possible and supervise its implementation in schools to reduce the amount of pressure on students.
They should make every effort to find the potential in every young person. Schools shouldn't merely pay attention to the rate at which their graduates gain admission to other programs at the expense of educating them to become well-rounded people.
Even more importantly, they should pay attention to the interaction between students and teachers, strengthening counseling work and truly solving the problems that students face.
Parents and elders should also do their utmost to communicate frankly with children, consulting them and understanding their inclinations and interests. Students shouldn't be forced to select subjects or majors in which they have no interest.
With regard to making friends between the sexes, parents shouldn't interfere too much. Encourage young people to establish and cultivate normal, healthy relationships.
The great majority of women commit suicide because they are victims of domestic violence, are abandoned by an unfaithful man or have had a love affair end badly.
Hopefully, every level of government can give appropriate protection to abused women on the basis of statutes to prevent domestic violence, and in this way domestic violence can be rooted out. Those who enforce the law should appropriately safeguard the rights and livelihood of abandoned women by demanding that men fulfill their responsibility to support their dependants. Religious figures and social workers should do their utmost to counsel and show concern for these unfortunate families and victimized women to prevent them from taking their own lives.
Among men who commit suicide, apart from a minority who do it because of a relationship or household discord, the vast majority are driven to take their lives because of unemployment, debt or a failed career. The government should earnestly face these reasons for committing suicide and give them serious consideration to seek a solution. They shouldn't waste too much time and energy on ideological wrangling between the political parties but rather devote their full attention to researching and drawing up a plan for the entire nation's overall economic development.
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