SRI LANKA: Poverty Drives Farmers to Suicide

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Feb 27 1998 (IPS) - Sri Lanka has become infamous as the country with the world’s highest number of suicide deaths, even by children as young as six.

At least three cases of six year olds taking their life by drinking insecticide have been reported from the farming town of Tanamalwila in the north-central region in recent months.

In one case, the victim drank poison after being reprimanded by his father for smoking a ‘beedi’ (indigenous cigarette). Another ended his life after a fight with a young neighbour over the seed of the jakfruit.

“It (suicide) has become like a cultural tradition, passed on from elders. Children don’t understand what they are doing,” explains sociologist Dr. Karunatissa Athukorale, an expert on suicides at Sri Lanka’s University of Peradeniya.

According to him, a society which pushes people to choose suicide over life “would seem to be in a pathological condition”.

Athukorala estimates that more than one person commits suicide every hour in Sri Lanka, greater than the number that dies on the country’s battlefields. The civil war is estimated to have killed at least 50,000 people in the last 15 years.

The reasons are varied: poverty, mental illness and unemployment are the most serious. The means of suicide is most often by drinking poisonous insecticides, available over the counter in this mainly agrarian country.

The situation is grave, and was acknowledged by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga in her speech on the country’s 50th independence anniversary on Feb. 4. Her government was the first to set up a Presidential Task Force to investigate the high rate of suicide deaths.

The Task Force recommended last month that the sale of insecticide should be controlled, like it is are in parts of northern Europe where a similar rise in suicide deaths had prompted the authorities to restrict sales.

Also the experts have urged the government to improve medical facilities so hospitals and clinics have the ability to handle suicide cases, and seriously begin programmes for preventive education.

Suicide deaths are costing the government huge amounts. Athukorale said the state, according to estimates, loses about one billion rupees (roughly 16 million dollars) forked out for the welfare of families shattered by the tragedy, and another three billion rupees on rehabilitating those who survive.

“The question is whether a poor country like Sri Lanka can afford to lose such a big amount of money and labour,” Athukorale asked delegates attending a three-day conference in Peradeniya this week after presenting his paper.

The problem of suicide is most serious in the farming communities, particularly among new settlers in the dry zone areas of the north-central region irrigated by a huge dam built in the seventies.

These migrant farmers are like share-croppers, the land does not belong to them. In addition they suffer from the problems of uprooted people in unfamiliar surroundings, unable to handle the alienation and marital and mental breakup.

In Sri Lanka, land passes from father to sons, but under the ‘colonisation scheme’ of the government the state continues to be the owner of the land. Consequently, settlers were issued permits for cultivation, which however could be transferred to only one member of the family, causing disharmony in the family.

This breakdown of the family structure was identified by Athurkorala as one of the main reasons for suicide in the farming community of the north central region.

Athurkorale’s study also showed that suicide rates in post- independent Sri Lanka varied according to the different governments. The rates were significantly low under socialist regimes and high ever since Sri Lanka embraced the market economy in the late 1980s.

The inability of the current system to protect the poorest sections of people and other vulnerable groups, could be seen as a contributory factor, the sociologist said his studies led him to believe.

The rate of suicide increases when the social structure is not conducive for integration, he argues. In Sri Lanka there are several ministries which deal with welfare and problems of youth and children but none of these institutions pay scant respect to

solving this grave problem.

Even private groups have not intervened though the situation is critical. Billions of dollars are spent on development, in areas like health, education, environment and for women’s empowerment, but until recently there was not even one counselling agency for depressed people.

Now the Sri Lanka Sumithrayo (which means making friends) has set up phone hot lines where people can call for assistance. Volunteers say thousands of people telephone and drop in to visit counsellors for psychiatric and medical counselling every year.