[Why are young Black children killing themselves if the future is so bright that one has to wear shades? … Well, it is most probably because they have no future and they know it. Employment opportunities for a child in this country are slim with our stagnant economy that is going nowhere because it is being taxed to death.

It is interesting to note in this article that suicides among Blacks during Colonialism was lower! Maybe Colonialism and White Afrikaner rule wasn’t as bad or nearly half as depressive as the modern Leftist Liars like to pretend… while they are busy rewriting history to put a new spin on it! Jan]

Mbabane – With six suicidal deaths per 100 000 teenagers, South Africa has the world’s eighth highest teenage suicide rate.

This information was revealed after a study into rising suicide numbers in Southern Affrica.

“Suicides were virtually unknown a century ago in African culture. People simply did not take their own lives,” said psychiatrist Wesley Thwala of Mbabane, Swaziland.

“There were less economic pressures for Africans a generation or more ago, but more importantly everyone had a strong sense of identity within a familial and community structure,” Thwala said.

With the breakdown of the extended family, a sense of security and identity was lost, he said. People were becoming more isolated and alone with no one to confide in.

“Their emotions (and) crises fester, grow larger, and when they are all-consuming, people opt for self-destruction,” he said. “People have no one to talk to. There’s no little mother or great uncle in the next hut to put things into perspective.”

One of the few countries in the region to keep adequate medical data for much of its population, South Africa has traced a rise in job-related suicides among policemen and security force personnel.

Janis Simelane, a social worker in Nelspruit said African soldiers used to be the most secure men in their roles but disrespect for police and security forces from apartheid days still lingered.

“This makes it much harder to do a dangerous job that requires cooperation and, yes, respect from the public,” she said.

Less easy for suicide counsellors like Simelane to explain are teenage suicides, which are on the upswing, doubling since 1990 for children between the ages 10 and 14, according to the South African Depression and Anxiety Support Group (SADAG).

Depression was the motive for 60% of teenage suicides, the support group’s studies have found and teenagers interviewed have betrayed romantic, even glamorous notions about suicide.

But peer pressure in school, the need to perform well academically, socially and in sports, also contributed to teen depression, SADAG said.

The most favoured method of self-destruction among South Africans was hanging, followed by shooting, gas and setting oneself alight.

In Swaziland, a small and less developed neighbour of South Africa, most suicides are performed with poison, using inexpensive weevil tablets sold for rodent control. Hanging follows as a preferred method and then death by firearm.

In Swaziland people who attempt suicide and fail are arrested.

Police Assistant Superintendent Vusi Masuku said that most suicides resulted from troubled relationships, often between spouses or lovers.

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/New…/p>