Suicide issues again take headlines in South Korea for the past few days following the death of actor Ahn Jae-hwan who took his own life on Monday.
State-run Korea Youth Counseling Institute released a poll finding on Tuesday (Sept 9) indicating that six in every 10 South Korean teenagers have thought about taking their own lives at least once [via YonhapNews].
According to the survey of 4,700 middle and high school students, 58.8% of the respondents had thought of suicide; and 11.1% of the respondents attempted suicide.
The National Statistical Office (NSO) earlier said that there were 12,174 suicides representing 5% of all deaths in 2007. It’s also said that an annual average 23.6 Koreans committed suicide out of 100,000 people in the last five years, which is one of the highest levels in the world.
I almost didn’t want to believe the news report at the beginning, because the figures are a bit overwhelming… that’s like more than 30 Koreans are dying each day from suicide; the Korean government needs to treat this issue with serious urgency.
