The gangland killings and senseless knife crime that claims almost daily lives of innocent young teenagers on the streets of London grab the headlines. What does go unnoticed and unreported are the horrific levels of suicides amongst the young people in the UK. This is no more profound than what we are witnessing among the Turkish young men in London. Amongst this group of young men, the suicide rate is disproportionate and alarming. By enlarge, the suicides are confined to particular areas of London and largely amongst men.
According to the World Health Organisation, there is a suicide somewhere in the world every 40 seconds and we need to look at individual nations what really is going on to better understand the causes for this alarming statistic. What is disturbing is that more young people are killing themselves than ever before.
In the UK, an academic study for the Princes Trust published at the beginning of this year tried to give some sense to what is actually happening today, amongst the youth of Britain. What this study found was as that 1 in 10 young people felt their lives were ‘meaningless’ and an equal number felt their lives had no ‘purpose’ 5 in 10 young people ‘often or always’ felt stressed.
This feeling of despair was the strongest amongst the youth; what the Government has termed as NEETs. Not in Employment, Education of Training. A category of young people that have been labeled to be predisposed to ‘ gang culture’, engaging in knife crime, drug use, teenage pregnancy, heavy drinking and excesserbated by the decline in the economy with the diminished level of employment or training opportunities.
It is striking that the number of social commentators have voiced their concern over the years over the lack of sense of ‘community’. This is borne out of some of the feelings expressed by young people. They say that ‘they do not feel safe to walk around alone at night’ and in general ‘not having anything to do’. This cocktail of events has given rise to an increasingly vulnerable generation of young people with challenges for the society and the State at large. What young people seem to crave is a sense of community support and networks.
For over 5 in 10 young people think the feeling of wellbeing is underpinned by either a good relationship with their peers and with their own families. Money and work come close behind and here is an acknowledgment that the recession in the economy is going to impact and excessebate this on their lives for some time to come.
The recession in the UK is forecast to bring with it worklessness to somewhere around 3milion people and among that figure 40% ‘notion of wellbeing’ of that will be amongst under 25-year-olds (1,250,000). In the UK the current estimate of the cost of youth unemployment to the economy is estimated to be £1m a day.
The cost to the society of suicides is difficult to comprehend. It is interesting to note that Britain is in group 4 (low suicide rate – WHO statistics), countries such as
Spain (8.2), Italy (7.1), UK (6.9), Israel (6.3), Argentina (6.4), Thailand (4) and Iran (2) do indeed seem very happy countries if one goes by the suicide statistics.
In the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in 2003 a study by the WHO-EURO Multicenter Study on Suicidal Behaviour publication stated that compared with the results from other European research centers, attempted suicide rates in Turkey were relatively low.
Since the 1990’s, rates of suicide in young people have declined steadily and by 2005 they were at their lowest level in England for almost 30 years. And as the suicide rates among young people have declined markedly in the past 10 years, in Wales and England new research has to look at why the suicide epidemic among young Turkish people is higher compared to the national statistics? And it is even more crucial to understand the suicides within often isolated and minority communities like the Turkish community in the UK.
To begin with, if you have all the normal feelings as a young person, lack of community support, lack of support in the education system and the added dimension of dual identity and living with two cultures. This can cause issues for a young person’s mental wellbeing with an ethnic background. Often one at home with the parent’s culture and the other at school and within the community, the challenges amongst this category of youth are even more magnified and complex.
Isolation from their families; failure to integrate into the British way of life; and most worrying of all, a macho culture among youth and among the Turkish community can explain in some respects their suicide epidemic.
The statistics show that difference between men and women rates of suicide are a similar pattern as the rest of the world, a lot more men commit suicide as compared to women (about 3-4 to 1). Young people of the Turkish community who committed suicide are also (mostly all) men. But the reason young men are more prone than young women to take their own lives is still not clear. In order to address some of these issues of isolation and propensity of young women to be able to talk things over with their peers and families compared to men who tend to hold things back and do not readily openly discuss their thoughts may lead some to deduce that this leads ultimately to some taking the suicide route. This may be a perception but there is no hard evidence to back any of these theories as more research has to be undertaken.
WHO statistics shows that attempted suicide rate are usually 10-20 times higher than completed suicide rates. Hanging is now the most common form of suicide. That method now accounts for 63% of suicides among young men. This research is confirming the form of suicide by Turkish young men almost all of them committed suicide by hanging.
New research has to be done to establish the disproportionate link between the suicide rate of the Turkish Youth in England and Wales and the low suicide rate in England and Wales amongst other groups of youth.
According to a survey conducted by the Statistics Netherlands in 2006 which was published in the Dutch Journal of Medicine, suicide rates for Turkish and Moroccan men and women are evidently lower than for native Dutch people.
Hence, it is interesting that countries with Islamic background have very few or no suicide rate as Islam forbids suicide. But why do Turkish youth with Islamic background have a suicide epidemic in the UK, there needs to be research accurately and urgently.
Growing up within different cultures with the right support networks can be incredibly enriching and if there an absence of the structures or anchor in any one or more cultures then the consequences can be daunting for all concerned. Uncertainty and lack of confidence and the sense of being misunderstood within their own community and rejected by the wider mainstream community and structures can lead to devastating results.
The results for the Turkish community are equally devastating to the parents of those predominantly young men, failing to get answers from the investigating authorities as to why their child has committed suicide. There seems to be an apparent lack of interest by the Metropolitan Police to investigate the youth suicides within the Turkish community. The community feels that the support they need is not forthcoming and a sense of powerlessness has taken hold amongst the families of the victims of suicide. No attempt to date has been made to better understand the suicide epidemic amongst Turkish youth in the UK.
The overwhelming research evidence amongst young people points to a need for a ‘sense of wellbeing’. Taking the mental health issues seriously, to fund and make these services more accessible at the point of delivery to young people.
What is clear is that young people and mostly men today are being bought up in a ‘macho’ culture where discussion of feelings is seen as a vulnerability. Childhood is different from what it was. Where young people are growing up with expensive toys, harsh realities of the world are imposed on them early, competition at school, lack of playtime, political correctness and above all lack of quality time and dialogue between child and parent during working hours. Childhood needs heroes and fairytales to build a positive life which will escort an individual in his/her adult life as child psychologist Bethelheim, saw this as a necessity in the process of growing up.
Depression is all the rage and particularly amongst the minority communities. Their sense of belonging and the meaning of life for them are central to their wellbeing. 26% of young people often or always feel depressed. What are the prospects that hold for this figure amongst the minority youth? What is their future? These questions can only be answered with more detailed analysis and after discussion with young people themselves.
Interestingly what has transpired in the form of Government intervention has been in the areas of citizenship training, civic service and a sense of duty in the community.
Daily visit in the form of trips for the elderly to shopping centers and community centers may hold the key to some of the emotional engagement to address this perceived deficit amongst the young people.
An army of young mentors in schools can help with the younger children. Innovative environmental projects to help address some of the impending effects of global climate change. These ‘positive structured’ activities will help all families. As it is well documented middle-class parents tend to shuttle their offspring from sports clubs to music activities almost by default. On the other hand, the disadvantaged poor families and households lack the resources to provide such opportunities.
The State through the communities at a local level may help to address some of the immediate challenges.
The bigger challenge remains when a quarter of the youth feel constantly depressed what is the consequence for the wider society in the time to come. How do we move forward on the wellbeing of all youth and especially how do we address the growing concern of high suicide rate amongst the Turkish young men?
The ability to forge relationships through community contact and schools through the mentoring programmes will lead to positive outcomes and the friendships will add value to the bigger picture of well-being and promotion of social cohesion.
Where will the backdrop of ever so early entry to the adult world of stress, consumerism and sexuality for young people lead the young people of today?
SEMRA EREN-NIJHAR -5 October 2009
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Semra Eren-Nijhar 