South Korea’s efforts to curb its alarming suicide rate are being undermined by a deep-rooted belief that seeking help for mental problems leads to social and professional exclusion, health experts say.
Suicide, fueled by an intense pressure for academic and career achievement, has become a perennial blight on a country whose rapid economic development has otherwise raised living standards and encouraged social mobility. Figures released by the South Korean Ministry of Health earlier this month showed South Korea’s 2009 suicide rate of 33.8 people per 100,000 was the highest among member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Hungary was a distant second with a rate of 23.3, followed by Japan with 22.2.
The figure for South Korea equates to nearly 50 suicides a day and shows a sharp increase from 2000 when the incidence of suicide was 13.6 people per 100,000.
“This is a very stressful society where worldly success weighs too heavily on people’s mentality,” said psychiatrist Lee Dong-woo, spokesman of the Korea Neuro-Psychiatric Association. “As a side-effect from the country’s economic success, pressure to succeed in schools and jobs has intensified to an intolerable degree.”
The government has taken some steps to address the problem, including short-term preventive measures like placing CCTV cameras on bridges over Seoul’s Han river and monitoring Web sites for material encouraging suicides. A law implemented in March to foster a “life-respecting culture” offered longer-term measures, including a nationwide survey, a government-run 24-hour emergency call service and a national network of suicide prevention centers.
However, both health officials and experts acknowledge that increased access to counseling has only a limited impact in a culture that traditionally emphasizes the virtues of stoicism and self-reliance.
“Koreans are highly reluctant to talk openly about mental health problems for fear of being socially stigmatized and discriminated against at work,” said Lee Jung-Kyu, a deputy director in the Health Ministry.
For every 100 South Koreans diagnosed with mental health problems, only 15 percent seek help from experts, compared with 35-40 percent in the US, Australia and New Zealand, Lee said.
“This is a great problem for us in addressing this issue,” he said.
National health insurance covers psychiatric counseling, but people are frightened off by the accompanying “Code F” — indicating mental health problems — that would show up on their government health record.
“Many Koreans are afraid of whispering voices behind their backs,” Kim Sung-il of the Korean Association for Suicide Prevention said, explaining why South Koreans are reluctant to visit mental health clinics.
“They also fear they might have problems in buying insurance policies and claiming insurance,” Kim said.
According to government data, suicide is the largest cause of death among young South Koreans, with 13 out of every 100,000 people aged between 15 and 24 committing suicide in 2010.
Even more worrying, in what is one of the world’s most rapidly aging societies, is the sharp surge in suicides among the elderly.
The suicide rate among South Koreans aged 65 or older in 2009 was 72 people for every 100,000, up from an already alarming 42.2 in 2001. South Korea provides little in the way of a social security safety net for its elderly population, with the burden of care traditionally falling on their children or other members of the extended family.
However, shrinking family sizes mean that many retirees are left to fend for themselves, with little or no support.
“The traditional social fabric has been frayed too fast over too short a period,” psychology professor Hwang Sang-min said. “As the country has been losing its family-oriented value system, the suicide and divorce rates have increased rapidly.”
Lee said the need to strengthen social safety nets for the elderly and to change the pervading mindset — among all ages — that sees mental illness as a weakness rather than a disease.
“We need to make them believe there will be second chances for them down the road,” Lee said.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the