What are causes behind rising suicide cases in Chitral?
CHITRAL: Speakers at a consultative meeting here said major causes of suicide among youth were unemployment, poverty, failure in marriage as per desire, excessive use of drugs, misuse of social media and deviation from Islamic teachings and social norms.
The meeting, “Rising incidents of suicides among youth in Chitral’ was organized by the district police and was chaired by DPO retired Capt Mansoor Aman. The meeting was attended by members of civil society organisations, religious leaders and academicians.
The speakers said religious leaders and teachers should sensitize parents to keep check on their children and encourage them to freely discuss with them the issues of different natures. They said distance between children and parents pushed the frustrated youth to take the extreme step of committing suicide.
They said special lectures and brainstorming sessions should be held in schools and colleges in such a way that the students might disseminate the message to the society in large and create an environment in which the youth might despise the act of suicide and might not think it as one of the sources of relief from worries.
The DPO said that police had already taken steps to arrest to control incidents of suicides that included setting up of Darul Aman under the aegis of social welfare department and zero tolerance towards drugs peddling in the district.
Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2018
The main cause of increasing ratio of suicides in Pakistan and especially in Chitral lies in the system of education of the country. The courses taught to the children is preserved in the same pattern as English had left over for us and no other or prominent change is brought in the system. There are no moral values and manners taught in this system of education. We are adept to Twinkle Twinkle little star and Ba Ba Black sheep and one being fluent in English whether one be an ultimate idiot is considered to be the ablest man. In the old system of education though it was not modern as based on scientific theories but it has been perfect in bringing up a strong soul with the teachings of 2 books of Sheikh Saadi in Persian Gulistan and Bustan as the compulsory subjects that taught honour, manner, philosophy and general dealings in life. I bet if these two books are re-introduced as a compulsory course in under-matric level be that translated in Urdu, the manners of the society will start getting changed by itself.
Not only our political heads but Mullahs, tablighis and other theologists also go after their limited concerns and how to educate our children and society is always neglected as none has any time to spare for that.