Fw: WHO Report: Suicide Every 40 Seconds

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Subject: Every 40 Seconds

>
> WHO Report: Suicide Every 40 Seconds
> October 3, 2002
>
> GENEVA (AP) -- One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds, one
> person
> is murdered every 60 seconds and one person dies in armed conflict every
> 100
> seconds, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
>
> Overall, WHO estimated that 1.6 million people met premature and violent
> deaths in 2000.
>
> The U.N. health agency, in what it described as the most exhaustive
> international study into the problem, examined the extent of violence in
> homes and on streets; the abuse of children and the elderly; suicide; and
> war.
>
> "The figures for violent death tell only part of the story," report author
> Etienne Krug said. "Physical, sexual and psychological abuse occur in
> every
> country on a daily basis, undermining the health and well-being of many
> millions of people."
>
> Krug's team spent three years writing the report, using research from 160
> experts in 170 countries.
>
> WHO now hopes to help governments mount national prevention campaigns
> focusing on young people.
>
> The report estimated that 815,000 people killed themselves in 2000 --
> making
> suicide the No. 13 cause of death worldwide. People older than 60 were
> most
> likely to take their own life.
>
> On average, men were three times more likely to kill themselves than
> women,
> although in China the rate was about the same for both sexes. About 10
> percent of people who attempt suicide eventually kill themselves, it said.
>
> The highest suicide rates were in eastern Europe, while the lowest were in
> Latin America. But this masked big differences between rural and urban
> populations and different racial and ethnic groups within countries.
>
> Among the Inuit people in northern Canada, for example, there were overall
> suicide rates of between 60 and 75 per 100,000 people, compared with 15
> per
> 100,000 for the general population, it said.
>
> WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said she hoped the report would
> break taboos surrounding violence in the home and suicides.
>
> "To many people, staying out of harm's way is a matter of locking doors
> and
> windows. To others, escape is not possible. The threat of violence is
> behind
> those doors," Brundtland said.
>
> "And for those living the midst of war and conflict, violence permeates
> every
> aspect of life," she said of the 310,000 people who died in wars.
>
> The report said an estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000 --
> excluding unlawful deaths disguised as accidents or natural causes. For
> every
> person who died, 20-40 others were hospitalized with injuries.
>
> The death toll included 199,000 people aged 10-29 who were killed by other
> young people -- often because of alcohol and drug abuse or easy access to
> firearms. Youth homicides soared in the United States, many Latin American
> countries and the former Soviet bloc but stabilized or decreased in much
> of
> Western Europe and Canada, the report said.
>
> In the United States, black youths are 12 times more likely to be murdered
> than whites.
>
> Krug said WHO had no plans to lobby countries for stricter gun control
> laws
> during its violence prevention campaigns.
>
> "It's not our role," he said.
>
> An estimated 57,000 young children died from abuse -- often head injuries
> or
> suffocation, with preschoolers most at risk, the report said.
>
> Millions more children were the victim of beatings. In South Korea, for
> example, a recent survey said 67 percent of parents admitted whipping
> their
> children to discipline them, and 45 percent reported hitting, kicking or
> beating them, the report said.
>
> In 48 surveys from around the world, up to 69 percent of women reported
> being
> physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate male partner at some point
> in
> their lives and as many as 20 percent of women were sexually abused as
> children, it said.
>
> For example, a recent South Africa survey said school teachers were
> responsible for 32 percent of disclosed child rapes.
>
> WHO also said the abuse of elderly people by relatives and other
> caregivers
> was "increasingly being recognized as a serious social problem."
>
> "It is also a problem that may continue to grow as many countries
> experience
> rapidly aging populations," the report said.
>
> In some developing countries where women have inferior social status,
> elderly
> women were at even greater risk for abuse than men. For example, they were
> abandoned or had their property seized after being widowed.
>
> In Tanzania, an estimated 500 elderly women accused of witchcraft -- often
> connected with an event like crop failure --were murdered every year, it
> said.
>
>
>