Children kill themselves by jumping off roofs, out of windows,
hanging themselves, and cutting their wrists. They take their own lives,
hoping to enter a different happier world where one and all love each other,
where schoolteachers to do not give you C’s and D’s, where one never feels
lonely and where one does not have to blush noticing others eyeing one’s
boots with cracked toe caps, borrowed one’s mother. In our adult eyes their
problems are trifling, yet our children are left alone with them and with
their fear, humiliation, and what they see as a hopeless situation, with
inexplicable and incurable self-pity.
Last winter a 12-year-old pickpocket hanged himself with
a vacuum cleaner’s hose in a small town in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. He had
been caught red-handed and the school principal wanted to see his mother.
The boy did not want to see her upset. This March two teenagers committed
suicide in Khmelnytsky, one after the next with a two-day interval, reports
The Day’s Mykhailo VASYLEVSKY .
While a suicide or attempt is registered in virtually every
Ukrainian city almost daily, what makes the juvenile suicide statistic
especially frightening is the fact of its existence. In 1998, the Derzhkomstat
[State Statistics Committee] registered 78 cases of what was termed “suicides
or self-inflicted bodily injuries of children aged up to 15.” 1997 shows
the same statistic. Compared to the total number of suicides (about 15,000),
the juvenile death toll seems insignificant. However, Liudmyla Volonets,
head of the Childhood Study Center at the Institute for Social Research,
told The Day, “Only cases when no other explanations can be thought
up are registered as attempted suicides. Yet among the causes of death
the Derzhkomstat also mentions ‘accidents resulting from use of firearms,
causing death.’ Here one is hard put to distinguish between an accident
and predetermined act. Another, one of the highest death indices, is described
as an ‘injury without ascertaining its accidental or predetermined character.’
This formula is used when the investigating officer is not sure. A total
of 213 such cases were registered in 1998.”
Among other things, an item formulated as “accidents involving
traumas” leaves many questions unanswered. When a child throws himself
under an onrushing car, bus, or streetcar, this is invariably recorded
as a road accident. Another item is referred to as “other accidents”. No
one will explain the difference. Last year saw 222 of them. Stanislav Voloshanivsky,
chief expert with Khmelnytsky’s regional labor and employment department,
made an attempt to answer this highly sensitive question. He believes that
police records never tally with roundup statistics, because a statement
made on the scene is always carefully worded, lest one get a dressing-down
from superiors. It is hard to explain why the government is scared to bring
up the problem of juvenile suicide. Perhaps because it is too painful and
because this society, despairing from other hardships, should not be exposed
to yet another, even greater shock. Or maybe the government does not know
what to offer children as an alternative to what Longfellow described as
the great world “on the other side of the red line, behind which is eternal
darkness.”
COMMENTARY
Natalia MAKSYMOVA, doctor of psychology and head of
the laboratory for socially maladjusted juveniles, Kostiuk Institute of
Psychology, Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine :
There are three groups of causes leading to juvenile suicide.
The first and perhaps the most significant one stems from the character.
The second is the age. We have in our parlance “teenage and youth suicides.”
And the third one has to do with complicated stressful situations. Yet
the latter are far and wide apart.
More often than not suicides are committed by children
and teenagers with some accentuated character traits. This includes the
asthenic type, children with weak nerves, asocial, and weak-willed. Next
comes the cycloid accentuation, when a good mood is quickly replaced by
depression. This type balances on a thin boundary between normal and abnormal.
The third and most widespread type is the hysteric and demonstrative character,
most often found in young girls. In such cases children may want to commit
suicide to prove or achieve something like sympathy. Usually such children
actually do not want to die. They often leave a final note, demand an ultimatum
or write a warning. Yet their attempted suicides often prove lethally effective;
they miscalculate the number of pills or the woman next door comes too
late.
Serhiy ANDRIYASH, deputy director, Ukrainian State Youth
Social Services Center:
Juvenile suicide is a major problem in Ukraine. Primarily,
it is explained by the fact that our children grow up very fast (due to
the abundant information available). Accordingly they harbor plans and
dreams too adult for their age; they want to assert themselves and get
more out of life, particularly more than their parents ever did. Naturally,
they cannot comprehend or adapt themselves to adult problems for various
reasons. Here a crucial role is played by teenage tendency to want it all.
Regrettably, children sometimes see no alternative but to take their own
life.
Troubled families appear an especially strong negative
factor. Lack of parental attention along with inability to understand children
and their problems make teenagers regard suicide as an ultimate solution
to stockpiling psychological problems.
NUMBER OF JUVENILE SUICIDES
Age group 1996 1998
5—14 88 78
15—19 383 407
Total 471 485
Urban residents 383 287
Rural residents 88 198
№9 March 21 2000 «The
Day»
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