World Suicide Prevention Day: Is Crime Rate The Reason Why More Indian Women Commit Suicide?
*This article talks about suicide and can trigger people struggling with suicidal thoughts* Talking about suicides can in itself, be very triggering and painful and feeling suicidal can be the worse feeling in the world but it becomes way more real and serious when the suicide rate begins to increase. This represents a problematic and crumbling society. Usually, around the globe, the rate of suicide by women is much lower than men’s, but in India, we are witnessing a different story.
Yep, the rate of suicide by men and women is pretty similar in our country. The suicide rate among Indian women is literally more than two times greater than that of women in other high-income countries and according to Harvard research, this number literally accounts for a third of the world’s female suicides.
According to the recently released data by the government’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), “About 45,026 women killed themselves in the year 2021 in India with more than 23,000 of them being housewives – that’s an average of 61 suicides every day or one every 25 minutes”. Furthermore, The highest age-specific rates of suicide for men were among elderly men aged 75 years or older, while among women it was young women aged 15-29. Can you even fathom that?
But, Why Is This Number Increasing?
This question is still shrouded in mystery because the reason for suicides is not addressed in many reports like that of NCRB. However, a cumulative analysis of the social conditions of women can help us answer the question. One of the reasons can be a mismatch between what women expect when they are empowered and what society is actually able to provide to them. One indicative trend for this problem is the high number of housewives committing suicide. This shows that the rising crime against women in the form of domestic violence is one of the major contributing reasons.
In India, there is a high proportion of women who are married off at an early age. Due to this, they end up becoming financially dependent on their husbands and in-laws – which implies that their ability to participate in decision-making – whether it is financial, sexual or even with their own reproductive rights, reduces. This obviously ends up having a deep impact on their mental health. On top of this, they are even subjected to domestic violence, which is a major reason behind women ending their lives to get away from their sad and bad situations. In fact, According to Lakshmi Vijayakumari’s research titled ‘suicide in women’, published in the Indian journal of psychiatry, “Women’s greater vulnerability to suicidal behaviour is likely to be due to gender-related vulnerability to psychopathology and to psychosocial stressors like safety, rise in crime and other such factors.”
Crime against women is a major reason behind the increasing suicide rate among women. They are increasing at an alarming rate. I mean don’t we wake up every day with words like rape, dowry deaths, female infanticide, forced child marriage, abduction etc. on the top of every newspaper and application?
Also Read: Women’s Safety In Delhi Is Going To The Dogs, Crime Rate Rise By 16.9%
So, Is The Rise In Crime Against Women To Be Blamed Here?
Unfortunately, with the kind of society we live in, it has become a fact that with the rising crime against women, we are not safe in public spaces, but alas, that does not mean that they are safe in their private spaces. An unbelievably high number of domestic violence cases have been reported in the past 4 years. It doesn’t just stop there, there’s a massive rise in the cases of marital rape, dowry deaths, mental torture, bride burning, and female infanticide too.
Although domestic violence has long been a problem in Indian society, the COVID-19 pandemic era saw an alarming increase in its incidence. Due to the widespread coronavirus, people were confined to their homes and were unable to go outside due to strict lockdown procedures. It led to mental health issues and a high rise in domestic violence cases. Many victims were even unable to register any cases and were unable to leave the places where the violence occurred. The shadow pandemic as we called it brought this problem more clearly into the light than ever before.
This insecurity that every woman feels at every moment of the day both outside and inside their homes, is bound to push them over the edge. A woman is emotionally and mentally very strong and doesn’t give up quickly, but when they have to face crimes against themselves along with the constant fear of getting attacked, it can be very hard. The most problematic aspect of the whole situation is the lack of help a woman gets. A victim of a crime is not just subjected to scrutiny and shame by society, but in some cases, they receive no support from their family as well. For many politicians, she becomes election propaganda, for the media, she becomes a source of TRP and for the system, she becomes a liability. It’s a painfully lost cause that we really need to work on.
Is This Cycle Ever Going To Change?
The dire situations a woman faces every day just for being a woman leaves her with one easier option, to give up on the whole situation. This sad reality however did see some minor changes after major cases like Nirbhaya. There are multiple helplines available for housewives and many NGOs are now working to ensure women’s welfare and safety. But my question is why. Why did we have to wait for something so majorly awful to happen to a woman to get the message that we need to move our asses and do something about this. Think about that for a second.
Estimates published by WHO indicate that “globally about 1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.” I mean, this number alone should light a fire inside us, to make a change.
I mean, the need of the hour is to understand the fact that what we need is not just more strict laws but most importantly their proper implementation. I mean, there are multiple laws in function even today but the lazy and corrupt implementation is creating further problems where the perpetrators of crimes are going free every day. I mean the recent occurrence where Bilkis Bano’s rapists were allowed to go free to become active members of society. I mean, what is that? This is so very painful and demotivating! This stuff needs to stop happening. I mean, the literal theme of this World Suicide Prevention Day is ‘creating hope through actions’. Hope is what we desperately need to bring down the number of suicides. Hope is what keeps people going.
Also Read: Bilkis Bano Is Numb After Knowing 11 Men Who Raped Her Were Released, Wants To Be Left Alone
Alas, this shouldn’t be false hope, or else the consequences will be more drastic like people will stop believing entirely in the system of justice. We need to create this hope through positive actions, which will in reality contribute to the betterment of the situation of women. This can be done by creating safer places for women, empowering them with education and employment, increasing the age of marriage and of course, all-women police stations, etc.
We literally need to be more sensitive to one-half of the population i.e. the women and address their issues more effectively and quickly and at the same time, sensitise the other half i.e. the men, making them more compassionate and less aggressive. We need to teach them to handle their emotions and most importantly respect women. This hope of a better society is the only way we can even imagine and work towards it.
A society where there is no rise in crime against women, where women will feel safe and walk freely at night without fear. A society where they are not scared in their own houses and where they don’t feel like suicide is the way out rather than living a life of pure torture. Sounds like pure heaven, doesn’t it?
