BAMRO

Spreading of suicide cases in province of Kirkouk, in Iraq.

   The Belgian Organization for Human Rights and Development presents a social research entitled:”the phenomenon of suicide in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk: its causes and ways of treatment”, which came as a result of the spread of the phenomenon of suicide in this Iraqi governorate, and of the need to determine the causes for the spread of this phenomenon in the Kirkuki society.

       The Belgian Organization for Human Rights decided to better understand this phenomenon through several research reports describing the disease and suggesting practical and effective remedies.

       This research prepared by the social researcher in the Belgian Organization for Human Rights, Mr. Mohamed Azeri; an educated social personality, who is originally from the Iraqi province of Kirkuk, and who serves as a social researcher at our organization.

     Kirkuk province has witnessed numerous cases of suicide among girls and young people using various techniques and methods for multiple social or economic reasons or for causes known uniquely to the person who committed suicide. For the ultimate purpose of scrutiny of this phenomenon psychologically and scientifically to define the causes that lead a person to put an end to his life consciously or unconsciously, we have decided to make interviews with specialists in the field of medicine and psychology. Therefore, we met the psychological specialist in Psychological Unity in the Educational Hospital Azadi: Dr. Jassim Mohamed Chande, who stated that:“suicide is killing oneself intentionally for several reasons.

One of the main causes of suicide is mental illnesses, including:

-The first cause which is emotional depression that means human negative perception for life, as well as complete inability to perceive any solution to one’s problem whether it is emotional, physical, economic, intellectual or cultural. Such person lives in a terrible conflict, and as a result of stress and bad mood, he comes up to the decision of ending that tragedy by putting an end to his life. In fact, killing oneself is not an easy decision for an ordinary human being who has the instincts of love for life, beauty, success and happiness, and those instincts cannot be eliminated unless there is a huge amount of suffering, tension, depression and sadness.

-The second cause is schizophrenia that makes the person hears voices telling him to commit suicide, and due to the impact of those auditory hallucinations, and misleading thoughts that come to his mind repeatedly, he becomes totally disturbed, and starts viewing life as valueless. As a result, he resorts to suicide.

-The third reason is the weakness of personality, or the inability of that person to cope with life events, especially with demanding instances of challenge. Thus, the failure to bear life’s difficulties makes the psychologically weak person fall in a circle of negative thinking.

-The Fourth cause is the reincarnation of roles, especially figures of movies and soap operas in roles of leaders who kill themselves for the sake of their country. Thus, the image of these celebrities creates a form of impact and a desire for imitation of those “leaders”.

-The Fifth cause is unintended suicide; this type of suicide is initially intended to attract attention by threatening to commit suicide. Unfortunately, death is the result because of error especially when the person is intending to throw himself in front of a car or hurt himself by causing severe bleeding or to deal with non-lethal drugs but this threat may become suicidal unintentionally either due to an error in time or place basically for people who lack physical strength and endurance.

           As for the older people who suffer from serious diseases and who are in need to be taken care, they may reach the situation where life becomes boring for them, but they do not possess the ability to commit suicide. Consequently, they start neglecting their own treatment in various ways: by refusing the take their medicines, or by eating more than the doses required or not eating and drinking in an attempt to put an end to their lives. Thus, it is highly recommended that the family remains cautious for the elderly and keeps taking care of them and not to leave them alone at home if they noticed that they began to think negatively and provide them with psychological and moral support instead.

       Another reason for the suicide is the deep thinking in an individual manner about certain issues for which one cannot find convincing answers so he finally reaches the conclusion of putting an end to his life. Thus it is advisable for the thinker student to seek answers for his confusing questions at his counterparts, look at the contrasting opinions, and discuss his views with others. Obviously, such experience will provide him with positive thoughts and will offer him the chance to enrich his ideas exactly as a​​ graduate student who, while receiving feedback from the Commission evaluating his thesis, is benefiting from the other members’ ideas in order to correct his mistakes and improve his mode of thinking. In brief, one should not “monopolize” thinking. Dr.Chendi also stresses that prevention is better than cure and that the family should be strong and united enough as to observe the behavioral changes that may occur to one of them such as: excessive smoking, drinking alcohol, taking meals in isolation, or eating sedatives and reading books with tragic ideas or even sleeping unusually late. These people are in bad need for establishing channels of dialogue and for keeping in touch with others. However, if the individual has an inherent idea of ​​suicide, he should be taken to the hospital to be monitored, and to be given appropriate medicine so that it would be easy to deal with his case efficiently.

    Saroud Mohamed Fateh; the director of the Hope Center for Family Welfare in Kirkuk branch stated that suicide cases have increased remarkably in recent years among women and men as a result of poor economic and security situations as well as because of neglect and the lack of dialogue within the family. Besides, neglect and lack of attention to the person leads to severe cases of depression especially if the family does not make any effort to get him out of this lamentable situations.            

    Girls, for example, may suffer from psychological pressure, and violence of alltypes which contributes to suicide. While for men, the extremely poor economic situations as well as the heavy loans that they are unable to pay are two basic causes that push them to commit suicide. As for the common average age of those who commit suicide it is mostly between 16 to 35 years. Director Saroud narrates the following story of a young lady: “she was a smart lady that I have known years ago. She was so enthusiastic as she completed her studies in literacy classes both in the middle school and up to the junior high school. She was a married mother, and her husband was exercising violence on her so as to force her to drop out of school but she defied everybody and divorced him in order to pursue her studies and get her university degree. Under severe economic conditions, she got married for a second time from another man who promised to embrace her children and take charge of them financially. Unfortunately, her second husband did not keep to his promise. As a result, he too started exercising  a planed pressure policy to force her return her children back to her ex-husband and to push her stop her study. Such situation put her in a state of despair and hopelessness and so she proceeded to commit suicide a day later”. Director Saroud also pointed out that the phenomenon of suicide has increased remarkably so far , and called social researchers to devote much effort on this phenomenon especially within  the quasi-absence of government or any other party. Dr Saroud also called for the strengthening of communication within the family and avoidance of forcing individuals to do some acts unwillingly. Families should instead adopt the method of discussion and dialogue and refrain from exercising psychological violence. Moreover, they need to think rationally about the issues and find solutions especially for housewives who do not communicate with the outside world.  

           The social scientist Dr. Abdul Karim Khalifa says that:”the phenomenon of suicide is one of the most prominent social problems, and it has emerged as a result of a great development emergency on the community and the entry of the Internet and Facebook, accompanied by the absence of development in the prevailing system of values ​​as well as the predominance of social oppression. Therefore, women suicide comes as a result of restrictions imposed by society upon them which limits their freedom and the violent practice of men exercised on them as well as the decision of most families to prevent their daughters from study and work or hold them accountable for divorce or delayed marriage; the blame might also go the widows who remain encrusted inside the house. As a result, this situation leads to a severe behavioral disorder. Indeed, Women are inherently emotional and cannot bear neither divorce nor neglect nor the bad economic situation along with assuming the responsibility of caring for children under conditions of displacement in a society that constrains their rights and deprive them from a free space in life. Consequently, being emotional by nature and unable to face problems or confront difficulties with enough patience generates then despair and sadness that result in suicide. As for men, committing suicide may be a result of emotional problems or a conflict with parents or despair that they suffer from as a result of poor economic conditions.

                 Dr Khalifa also pointed out that studies often show that parents who rarely talk to their children become strangers to the values ​​and habits of their kids .Thus, he recommends that parents should establish a strong friendship with their children to know better the problems they are facing, and to avoid exercising any type of pressure on them for any reason. The Chairman of the Department of Educational and Psychological Sciences at the University of Kirkuk ;Dr Aladdin Kazem reveals that suicide is an undeniable reality that may be linked to the nature of the community, where the dominant culture is achieving the results and when one fails to achieve his goal, he resorts to committing suicide. With the evolution of life, suicide cases have increased for several reasons, including the pressure in the diversity of requirements and the difficulty of achieving the necessary needs , the absence of values ​​and staying away from sources that enhance the individual's self-confidence and make one coherent. In the Iraqi society in particular, there are great intolerable pressures of society, so a lot of people are often driven deliberately from their areas and their homes, others suffer from lack of psychological security, which generates new pressures that push one to commit suicide. Dr Kazem classifies the causes of suicides by age to two categories for males:

-The teenage category: These usually commit suicide due to failure at the emotional level or because of failure to achieve their goals, including the emotional ones.

 -Committing suicide for young people is basically linked to their requirements; a young person needs: stability, housing and establishing a family and ensuring a permanent income so that he can feel his utility in society. Once, he fails to possess those requirements, the young man assumes that he does not have any value and thus believes that there is no need for him to stay alive. As for females, Dr Kazem distinguishes between adolescents and young girls. The former experiences a confusing period of their life especially if they miss the guidance within the family, so the girl may become a victim of her emotional passion, which may lead her to suicide especially if she fails to get out of her problems. The young girls are not luckier either; they keep raising such questions as: “why did I get not marry? And why can’t I get a suitable partner for the rest of my life? Why am I unable to have a job? Why wasn’t I allowed to pursue my studies?” What makes her situation worse is the lack of life experience, and her inability to achieve her objectives essentially upon being involved in an emotional relationship with a young man. Thus, the accumulation of problems along with the absence of any possibility to solve them besides the fear of disclosure of her secrets and the refusal of the family to let her get married are all strong reasons to lead a young girl to suicide .

         Dr Kazerm adds: “I would advise parents to be aware of their kids’ transformations through age, and the differences among male and female. Moreover, parents need to consider their kids’ requirements and how to deal with them and find out their goals and the improvement of their skills on  ​​how to deal with challenges of life. Consequently, parents have to make their kids flexible to face life successfully. Furthermore, the improvement of the relationship between the parents and their children develops personal efficiency of the sons, their adaptation with unforeseen events and the positive admiration for their ideas. The parents must set a good example for their children and put them on the right track, regardless of some obvious failures.

             It is worth mentioning that the  first statement special for the Media Conference of the Association of Hope for family counseling in the province of Kirkuk refers to large suicide number recorded by the Assembly  among women and men, and according to death certificates issued by the forensic medicine in Azadi Teaching Hospital in Kirkuk, as stated in the statement:  In the year 2012, the total cases of women suicide by burning was (65) case, and in the year 2013 until the beginning of November, there were (55) cases of suicide by burning, and in the first ten months of 2014 the number amounted to (53) case of burning suicide, while the year 2015 witnessed , in the first six months, case of suicide, murder and violence that reached (35) case of suicide by burning: four of them for males, and 17 cases of suicide by hanging or shooting : seven of them were for females, and ten for males, while the deaths of violence of all kinds reached (14) and all the victims are women exclusively.

         The director of the Medico-Legal Division Associate doctor Adli Shokr Mahmoud Ahmed said that: “all the police cases are referred to the Medico-Legal Division and that suicide statistics come from police stations and not from us in forensic medicine, and many of the media reports are inaccurate, and not real because these reports refer to the overall number of the dead received by the forensic medicine, but after the investigation and recording of data, cases of suicides may appear less than what is mentioned in those reports especially if they are contained  in the classification of cases arriving at the forensic medicine.

      Dr Adli Shokr has classified the cases received by the forensic medicine according to gender, age, and the views of the victim’s family but not from the viewpoints of investigation, and whether the death was intended by the victim (suicide), or intended by others (murder), or by accident by the victim, or by accident by others, or if the case is unknown. Dr Adli alsoexplained that the forensic medicine department does not determine whether the death was caused by suicide or killing because these investigative tasks belong to the duties in police stations whereas the function of forensic medicine is to write a report explaining the materials used and tools that led to the death. Thus, it seems that a lot of people lack information about the forensic medicine and its function. So, Dr Adli Shokr called the media at the same time to follow up cases that come to the forensic medicine and that they convey in the news of their institutions and to follow-up investigations in order to determine whether the incident was a suicide or not, and not to be contented with the transfer of only one piece of information. After contacts conducted by the News with some civil society organizations, it turned out that one of the main reasons for girls’ suicide is forced marriage, especially in villages and rural areas, and this is the subject we will address in details in the coming issues.