Reason Number 20 - Suicide China

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 40
The suicide rate among women is 25% higher than among men, and rural suicide rates are three times higher than urban rates. The causes of suicide in rural areas tend to arise out of different factors, most commonly poverty and domestic abuse, with women suffering by far the most.

According to Xu Rong, who works with the Cultural Development Centre for Rural Women, “Most suicides in rural areas start with small quarrels between couples…Some of them are accidental; some are actually rooted in unhappy marriages.”

In China’s countryside, there is great pressure on young women to conform to society’s expectations of traditional marriage, meaning many arranged marriages.

Many marriages are not based on love, and, says Xu Rong, “Rural men tend to be reluctant to express their love or care for their spouses, who have more romantic emotions.”

One of the problems that Xu Rong’s organization faces is that it remains very small scale. She says that when the project began she faced criticism because people felt suicide was a “private issue.” Even though the project soon began to achieve good results, it only served six villages in three rural counties.

Acknowledging this problem, Liu Denggao, a vice-director at the Ministry of Agriculture, said his ministry would restrict production of the most poisonous insecticides, change the color and smell of poisons, package chemicals in small amounts, and educate the public about appropriate uses and storage of pesticides. He was speaking as a workshop on a National Suicide Prevention Plan for China in 2003.

In 2006, Xu Rong said it was still too easy for women to obtain pesticides, three years after the Ministry of Agriculture had said it would address the problem.

Lethal pesticides today are freely available off the shelf, are inappropriately stored in home environments, and this inexpensive answer to a moment’s anger or feeling of depression too readily is the answer taken.

Early in 2007, a young woman was preparing to kill herself in the central city of Chongqing. As she stood, ready to jump off a six-storey building, a crowd gathered below.

Some yelled for her to jump, and some phoned friends to “come and enjoy the spectacle.” Others were upset she had not jumped before the emergency services arrived to try and talk her down. One young man sat in the window of an opposite building playing his guitar to entertain the crowds. When the emergency services persuaded the woman to give up the attempt, the crowd below booed. The unfolding of tragedy before the eyes of many Chinese citizens is today viewed with a sense of pleasure.