The key motive and reason for suicides are family problems. The state is trying to combat suicides among minors, yet the statistics remains unchanged for more than 10 years.
On September 29, 2021, a 14-year-old girl committed suicide in Dzhalal-Abad by taking tablets that lower blood sugar levels. She was in the intensive care unit for almost ten days but doctors failed to save her.
According to Samara Kydyrova, officer of the Inspectorate for Minors’ Affairs (IDN) of Dzhalal-Abad City Department of Internal Affairs, the schoolgirl was quiet and reserved, from a non-needy family, her parents are educated and are in good standing with the city. However, the girl was at odds with her mother.
In June, another minor girl committed suicide in Osh. She had to return home after a meeting with her friends. Late at night, the 17-year-old girl was found hanging on the horizontal bar on the sports ground. According to her mother, she had had mental issues since third grade, she had heard different sounds, she thought that she was followed by someone. Instead of visiting a doctor, they had visited a mullah (a clergy member – editor’s note).
One month earlier, a body of a teenager was found in Lake Issyk-Kul under the pier. When the body was pulled out of water, it had a backpack full of stones. The boy decided to commit a suicide when he learned that he had leukaemia. He was 16.
According to statistics, one teenager in Kyrgyzstan commits a suicide once in four days, on the average. Moreover, attempted suicides happen even more often.
In the last three years, the number of suicides and attempted suicides among girls was almost twice as many as boys, according to the General Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the UNICEF analysis, the picture is quite different. In 2009 to 2018, the number of committed suicides among boys was more than among girls. And the number of attempted suicides was more among girls.
Forced self-isolation worsened mental health of children
The 2020 lockdown and switching to online learning had strong impact on the mental and emotion state of children. According to the Ministry of Education, 83 schoolchildren and 15 students of colleges and vocational schools committed suicide in 2020. In general, these figures are very similar to the ones for previous years, but the lockdown resulted in seven teenagers having committed suicides in 10 days. They were aged 12 to 16.
The whole country was shocked, the authorities were raising alarm and rushed to arrange online psychological support for children and parents. Moreover, videos where parents were behaving aggressively: shouting, beating children because of homework appeared on the web almost every day.
According to Khimiya Suyerkulova, counsellor of children at school No. 3 of Osh, self-isolation demonstrated tense relations between parents and children.
“The pandemic has strongly affected the mental condition of children. The advantages were that children spent time with parents, felt their tenderness, and were satiated with love. At the same time, there were many disadvantages, too. Parents had financial problems, unemployment. Many parents forgot how to be next to their child for a long time, they got used to shift all responsibility to school,” she said.
According to Gulshan Abdyldaeva, main specialist of the Office for School and Out-of-school Education of the Ministry of Education, the agency was trying to get back to the traditional education not only because of the quality of online education. School is a kind of a “life saver” for children saving them from “craziness” at home.
“At school, children forget about their family issues. They can speak to their classmates, classroom teacher or counsellor of children. Sometimes, families are so bad that their children try to survive. And school is the system that makes them all equal and sociable,” she said.
Indifference and conflicts in families – main cause of suicides among children
In 90 per cent of cases, the cause of suicides among adolescents is family problems, and in 10 per cent of cases – one-way love and other motives, according to the Ministry of Education. It is widely accepted that children from vulnerable families with low income commit suicides.
“In fact, this is not so. Why are children from non-needy families at greater risk of suicide? Because their parents have no emotional, spiritual bonds to their children. We need to work with parents systematically. Money and all material goods are not very important to a child. After work, you just need to talk quietly with your child for 20 minutes. You should not rebuke or scold him/her, but just have a heart-to-heart talk. This is more important than a gift that costs 15 thousand or the latest iPhone,” said Altynai Karieva, child psychologist, master of psychology.
Nurzhan Adylova, chief of the Inspectorate for Minors’ Affairs of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, also noted that parents do not have a habit of talking to children:
According to Karieva, it’s in the adolescence when parents lose contact with their children. The child walks smoothly towards adult life, but parents do not want to change their behaviour and parenting style.
“At this age, it is very important to become a friend to a teenager. In other words, you should talk, listen to them, so that a child could turn to parents in case of need. This is very important,” she said.
Even if the child has suicidal behaviour not because of family but because of one-way love, low self-esteem, difficulties in communicating with peers, bullying, parents still play a key role in what direction the behaviour’s decision will change, according to experts. However, adults tend to ask questions when it is too late.
“None of the respondents could answer the question on whether they knew if the deceased turned to someone for help to solve his or her problems and what kind of help was received. This indicates that many relatives were not a in trusting relationship and did not pay much attention to somehow understand what was happening in the life of their close person,” according to the UNICEF report.
Migration and violence have a strong impact on suicides among adolescents
On September 16, 2020, the body of a 15-year-old girl was found in the watercourse Nariman of Osh region. She went missing one month earlier. According to Kloop, the schoolgirl was pregnant. The investigation found out that parents of the deceased were in labour migration in Russia, while she was raised by her mother’s father since third grade.
According to the report, after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and shift to online study, she went to her uncle to the village of Kara-Kuldzha. In June 2020, the girl’s cousin had sexual intercourse with her. Later, she learned that she was pregnant.
A similar story occurred this year. In Chui region, a 14-year-old girl tried to commit a suicide by cutting her wrists. As it turned out, her 62-year-old uncle, with whom she lived at the request of her relatives, raped her repeatedly. According to her lawyer, Sherdor Abdykaparov, he blackmailed the niece by saying that “he would kill her father if she opens her mouth.” Moreover, the girl’s parents did not pay attention to the daughter’s complaints at early stages of violence. And after a while, the girl’s father began to victim blame the daughter and defiantly rejected her.
These stories show acute problems resulting in suicides – labour migration of parents and violence against children. According to the UNICEF report, half of adolescents at the age of 12 to 18 who attempted suicide had their parents in migration at the time of the suicide attempt.
“I am working at school, and children during counselling say, “I don’t need the money they remit, expensive clothes, the double-storey house they are building. I want to have parents beside me.” Unfortunately, parents do not understand it. They think they are doing all the best for their children. And in this pursuit of material things, they lose spiritual and emotional contact with their child,” child psychologist Altynai Karieva shared her observations.
Over a half of respondents experienced domestic violence from their parents, caregivers and other family members, according to the UNICEF report. According to Nurzhan Adylova, chief of the Inspectorate for Minors’ Affairs of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, all suicidal processes occur because of violence. In order to prevent it, IDN holds regular preventive work at schools, closely cooperating with counsellors, speaks to parents. Recently they developed and distributed materials describing the methods of prevention of violence and suicides.
Psychological support of children is not fully operational
The state is trying to combat suicides among adolescents via the school system, IDN and social services. Since 2011, all educational institutions have one counsellor in their staff because of the increasing violence rate. The Ministry of Interior Affairs assigned one inspector to every school in cities, and one officer to 4-5 educational institutions in rural areas. Counsellors and inspectors for minors’ affairs are closely cooperating and holding preventive work.
Khimiya Suyerkulova has been working as counsellor in school No. 3 of Osh for five years. Her main task is to register children from vulnerable families, work with them and solve conflicts among students. She said she has only time to solve conflicts, with no time left for other events. Before the pandemic, a psychologist was on the staff of the school, but now the school does not have money to pay. She tries to provide support to children and parents by her own efforts.
“I have contacts with the department of psychology of OshSU. They patronise us. Moreover, we have the children’s development fund at the mayor’s office in Osh. I know that parents need more help, so I send parents there to talk and to be diagnosed. Very often, adults are stressed and on the edge. 90 per cent of parents are aggressive. Their behaviour affects their children,” Suyerkulova said.
Currently, child psychologists in Bishkek and Osh schools are funded by local budgets. The Ministry of Education raises the question of the need to establish psychological services regularly, but it lacks money.
“It is very important to have a competent psychologist at school, who can prevent suicides. He/she can identify suicidal intentions by using various tests, by talking to a child. We also need to hold system work with parents,” Altynai Karieva said.
Nazgul Turdubekova, head of the League of Child’s Rights Defenders, said that Kyrgyzstan has no system of psychological and psychiatric help.
“What does it mean to have few [child] psychiatrists for one million? It means they do not make a difference. There are no new child psychiatrists trained, so we have this dire situation. Some suicides were committed just because children needed support of such specialists at some point of time, but there were no such specialists,” Turdubekova said to CABAR.asia.
See also: Psychiatry in Central Asia: Social Stigma and Isolation
What should parents do?
According to child psychologist Altynai Karieva, suicides are divided into two types: true and demonstrative.
True suicide means that a child has planned everything and made up a scenario. For example, he was bullied at school for a long time, say, from the first grade. And in the fifth grade, he decided to commit a suicide.
Demonstrative suicide is when a child wants to draw attention to oneself, but does not really want to hurt oneself.
“For example, a child wants to get everyone frightened by hanging oneself, but could not help oneself. There are so many demonstrative suicides among adolescents,” the specialist said.
She shared her recommendations with parents:
Parents or caretakers of a child must pay attention to the appearance and behavior of the child: is he too aggressive or reserved?
The biggest mistake of adults is that they apply the strategy of total ban and control, taking away mobile phones. However, they should behave otherwise, they should watch a movie with their child, discuss it, ask about new trends among young people.
If you have noticed that your child is not well, you should first turn to a psychologist. If the specialist says that he/she must see a child, you should first talk to your child and ask him/her to visit the specialist together.
The psychologist holds a session with a child individually and confidentially, while parents wait outside. If the specialist notices the child has suicidal intentions, he/she will refer you to the psychiatrist.
It is a reminder that Kyrgyzstan has a hotline for children “111”. If a child faces a problem, he/she can seek advice and psychological aid on the phone, especially in case of harsh treatment and violence. Psychologists provide help day and night.
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