Averting suicides

Coming in the midst of heart rending incidents of human misery, it is gratifying to learn that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has asked the Sindh government to hold an immediate inquiry into the circumstances that have forced a number of women to threaten collective suicide.
According to a news report, Jamali's action followed the shocking disclosure on March 26 by Tehrik-e-Insaf's Imran Khan that as many as 18 women from Sindh province would commit mass suicide at the Mausoleum of the Father of the Nation on March 28 because of abject poverty.
Pointing out that the reason behind the women's decision for this extreme measure was gruesome poverty and unemployment, he said that eight of the women had asked their family members to take their bodies to Islamabad for burial in order to draw attention of the rulers to the plight of the poor.
The chairperson, Noor Jehan Panezai, who was conducting the Assembly proceedings in the absence of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, remarked: "It is a very serious matter.
Hopefully, the government will take note of it." It was then that the Advisor to Prime Minister on Social Welfare and Women Development, Nilofar Bakhtiar, is reported to have informed the House that Jamali had taken up the matter with the Sindh government.
The menacing spread of suicide cases in Pakistan from time to time, do not appear to have stirred the changing governments in Pakistan over a long past into focusing attention on its causes and preventing self-killing on a large scale.
The first World Suicide Prevention Day was observed in Stockholm, on 10th September, last year, with the unambiguous theme, 'How to Prevent Suicide'. It will be noted that it was simultaneously observed in various countries of the world, including Pakistan.
IASP has its presence in this country too, with Dr Murad Moosa Khan, Chairman Department of Psychiatry, Aga Khan University, as its country representative. It will be recalled that in a message on that occasion, he had pointed out that World Suicide Prevention Day aimed at putting the issue on the agenda in this country.
Unfortunately, no serious view was evidently taken to probe the too many suicide cases reported from time to time over the recent years.
However, now that the Prime Minister has taken cognisance of the threat from the 18 disillusioned women from Sindh, one hopes that it will mark the beginning of an effort to identify the tragic causes of frequent suicides and find remedies against them.