Suicides among Kazakh minors up by a third in 2023

There has been a 30-percent rise in suicides among minors in Kazakhstan in the first nine months of this year, according to the official statistics.

A total of 169 teenagers committed suicide in January-September — nearly 28 percent of them were aged between 5 and 14, and 72 percent between 15 and 17, according to ranking.kz website, which specialises in data journalism.

Suicides among those aged 15-17 went up by 45 percent compared with the same period last year, the website said citing figures provided by the General Prosecutor’s Office.

The overall suicide rate in Kazakhstan increased by 3.4 percent in the said period, the report said.

There has also been a rise in the number of attempted suicides among minors – a nearly 18-percent rise among those aged between 5 and 18 (the number went up from 253 to 298). However, the real figures are probably higher, because ‘unsuccessful’ suicides are usually not recorded, the report added.

It said that in the past several years the dynamic of suicides among minors had been erratic. After a two-year rise in 2018-2019, the rate dropped by 20 percent during the 2020 lockdowns, but already in 2021 it had returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, in 2022 it dropped by 11 percent.

Boys accounted for 68 percent of the suicides among minors in January-October. The number of attempted suicides was higher among girls – 221 compared with 77 among boys, according to the General Prosecutor’s Office figures.

They also show that 97 percent of the teenagers who took their lives in the said period were not under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or any other substances.

The General Prosecutor’s Office data provided possible reasons only for a few cases – seven suicides were caused by feelings of loneliness and rejection, five by the mental pressure of poverty, and three by quarrels with parents or other family members.

The report added that there was a lack of information on suicide cases caused by bullying or other forms of physical or psychological abuse. It noted that in 2021 the police opened 41 cases on charges of driving someone to suicide.

In the WHO reports, Kazakhstan has long been named among countries with the highest suicide rates among minors.

A poll commissioned by Exclusive.kz earlier this year showed that over 70 percent of young people in Kazakhstan suffer from one or another mental health condition.  

Twenty-one percent of young Kazakhs are struggling with insomnia, 16.6 percent with apathy, 15.7 percent with long spells of bad moods, 13.2 percent with anxiety and 12.8 percent with stress, according to the poll conducted by the Qalam Fund. 

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