THE MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SUICIDE
THE MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SUICIDE.
Due to a lack of awareness on the validity behind mental health issues, there is a tendency for mental illness to be chalked down as ‘something that went wrong’ with the people who dare to share about their struggles. For example, depression is often confused with sadness. There is a clear failure to recognize that depression involves a flaw in brain chemistry, and it is deeper than something that is brought about by one’s own attitude or mentality. Yes, depression can be triggered by a traumatic or life-changing event; but depression is very different from sadness.
From the example above, we can see that one of the main barriers of treating or recognizing mental illness is social stigma. In recent years, the view towards suicide, actual and attempted, has garnered more attention due to the increasing amount of cases over the years. Befriender’s KL publicity director Ardy Ayadali said 7,446 who called in 2016 had suicidal intentions, compared with 5,739 in 2015[i] – showing almost a 2000 increase in callers. A study in 2014 entitled ‘Completed Suicides and Self-Harm in Malaysia: A Systematic Review’ stated that the prevalence of suicide in Malaysia was six to eight per 100,000 population per year[ii].
In Malaysia’s, suicide or its attempt is a crime under Section 309 of the Penal Code. It carries a sentence of up to one year in prison, or a fine, or both. The main question that comes to light would be: should those who attempt/are involved in suicide ought to still be brought before the criminal justice system? The following will discuss on the mind-set behind suicide; reasons for suicide’s criminalization and decriminalization; as well as the focus on what has been done in Malaysia in regards to mental health. What more should the law be equipped with, could have, or should have done to prevent these acts?
Understanding the mindset of suicide
The Health Ministry revealed statistics that showed worsening state of mental health problems among students in Malaysia, from one in ten individuals in 2011 to one in five in 2016.
Mental health expert Dr Mohd Suhaimi Mohamad observed that if mental health concerns are not addressed in due time, it can lead to students being inclined to go through with their thoughts. “Low self-confidence as a result could cause a student to be in a state of worry and stress, coupled with the pressure that drives them to be competitive,” he said[iii]. Feelings, if bottled up too long, can drive a person to be overwhelmed and this could lead to skewed emotions and reckless decisions.
Individual Case Study
Based on the article I have chosen, The Malaysian Perspective on the Criminalization of Suicide talk about what is the correlation between criminal acts and mental health involving suicide attempt issues. The question is, suicide is considered as crime or mental health issues? In Malaysia, a person who suicide or want to commit it can be punished up to one year prison, or a fine, or both under Section 309 of the Penal Code. According to World Health Organisation(WHO), suicide is one of the ten leading causes of death in the world, accounting for more than 800,000 deaths annually, which is one person every 40 seconds worldwide. This is a global phenomenon and occurs throughout the lifespan. The pattern of suicide and the incidence of suicide vary from country to country. Cultural, religious and social values play some role in suicide. Compared to the West and some of the countries in the Asian region the incidence of suicide is low in Malaysia. Even though the suicide cases is low in this country, the number of people who attempt suicide increase year by year. A research had been conducted by University Hospital Kuala Lumpur about suicide cases. Majority were male, of Indian descent and were still in young age. Results show that, 48.8% of all suicides were ethnic Indians though the population of indian in Malaysia is only 8%. Then, 38.1% of suicides were Chinese while only 3.6% were Malays. The preferred methods of suicide were poisoning and hanging.
There is a lot of factor that lead a person to commit suicide. The highest factor that contribute the most in suicidal cases is marital status. Results shows that for each marital status group, by age and sex, married person have the lowest suicide rates and young or widowed males have exceptionally high rates. As been mentioned above, youngster between age 17-25 always depressed because they have problems such as relationship breakup and grief or death of the loved one. This kind of problem really give a big impact to their life especially for whom do not know how to cope with the problem. Not only are people dealing with relationship abuse or emotional conflict at particular risk for suicide attempts, but studies also show that breakup can lead to suicide as well. In the same way that being in a committed relationship helps protect against depression, this same sense of commitment may become dangerous once that relationship ends. Since any romantic relationship requires a lot of sacrifices and investment of time, emotional bonding, friendship, and involved with your own money, the sudden end of any relationship can have serious consequences and effect in your life. When the relationship ends, not only do they become emotionally vulnerable and depressed, they may also be at greater risk for suicide.
In Malaysia, finance problem is one of the causes that lead to suicide cases. Due to Malaysia economy now, everyone is struggling with their own life to make money and keep survive. When they reached a point, feels so desperate to use money, they tend to make a tragic decision to involve in debt or shark loans. Shark loans usually have a very high interest and they will brutally warn you if you do not pay within the time given. After debt collector began to threaten them with seizure of assets and additional charges, they tragically choose to take their own life in response to the pressure of mounting debt. This situation slightly differ with cases happened in developed countries such as Japan, Korea and more. In developed countries, the highest factor people committed suicide because of workload stress. They work more than 12 hours per day due to increase their company or country performance. I am afraid that it will happen the same in Malaysia because nowadays people tend to do more than one work per day to find some extra earnings.
Lastly, people committed suicide because of pressure on internet and social media. Mostly youngster spend most of their time with smartphones to surf on Instagram, Twitter and Whatsapp. Top rank cases due to internet is when their information and profile are taken by anonymous. People will be depressed because all their personal information stolen by bad guys on the internet. This activity called phishing. Phishing lures internet users to reveal personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers or other sensitive information that could lead to identity theft. The simple example in real life is when there is fake account that use all your personal information including your picture to run some bad activity online. In anytime the bad guys can exposed the victim's information to humiliate them in public. This can lead to depression and worse which is suicide.
Based on the article, they said the law can avoid people from commits suicide. Does the criminalization of suicide really serve as an effective prevention of suicide? The World Health Organization (WHO) holds the stance that criminalization stalls people from seeking treatment, which in turn increases the risk of suicide rather than reducing it. Criminalization seems to focus on the assigning of blame, rather than identifying the reason behind their cry for help. Criminalization may even motivate those attempting suicide to ensure that they don’t fail, instead of surviving and having to meet their punishment. That will make them more depressed and suppressed their feelings. So, there are many alternative ways had been taken to prevent suicide attempt. Malaysian government have take an early steps to get a correct data about suicidal cases in Malaysia. National Suicide Registry Malaysia (NSRM) was established in year 2007, to create a nationwide system to capture data on completed suicide in Malaysia. They also make some research about the morbidity, geographic and temporal trends and the population at high risk of suicide. A year later, online website is invented to make sure public also can contact and reach them in anytime. Plus, the National Mental Health Policy and the Mental Health Act 2001 was imposed to increase public awareness about mental health issues. This action taken to educate citizen that people who has mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, insecurities and many more can lead them to suicide attempt. This had lead to several programmes which includes “Program Minda Sihat Sekolah”, Screening and Health Mind Intervention in Primary Health Care, Community Mental Health Rehabilitation Programme and many more. As we can see that, all these programs are held in various types of community such as in schools, university and public.
There is one community service that offered help to whom face mental health problems or have intentions to commit suicide called, The Befrienders. This community service mainly operated in Kuala Lumpur. It is 24-hours suicide hotline in Malaysia. The service that the Befrienders offer is called befriending. Their aims to benefit society by helping people who contact them to develop better emotional self-awareness which in turns lead to improved emotional health and well-being. Their service can be reach by phone calls, email or face to face meeting. Befriender’s KL publicity director Ardy Ayadali said 7,446 who called in 2016 had suicidal intentions, compared with 5,739 in 2015. This statistic shows that it increase by more than 2000 peoples contact them in one year later.
What can we do when we face this problem? Firstly, you must build connections with other people. Do not let yourself feels lonely. Feelings connected to others is a big part of protecting yourself from suicide. There are several ways to avoid suicidal attempt such as spend time with family and friends and go to cultural or religious event. Share your problems with your loved ones, maybe they can help you or just be there and be a good listeners. Sometimes you just need a shoulder to lean on and pair of ears is more than enough. Plus, you are advised to get early helps from professional for mental health problems. Here a some sign of mental problems which is feeling like nothing makes you happy anymore, feeling very sad or hopeless for many weeks, feeling like you cannot cope with things that happen in your life or you feel very stressed or scared for many weeks. Please talk to doctor or counselling if you notice these sign.
Here are my thought about this issues. First of all, I want to stress that suicide is related to mental health issues. It's not a crime. How come being sick is a crime? They need us to help them gain back their will to keep on believe that they can live happily on this earth. There still a lots of thing we need to do or keep on trying to prevent suicide from happens. We should learn to love ourselves rather than love others first because you are more precious and valuable. As a conclusion, Malaysian government need to step up their game by paying more attention to these mental health issues. I hope that people who attempt to commit suicide will not be punished but they will be cured. Hopefully suicide cases can be reduce if we all together help them to gain their confidence back. Last but not least, love yourself.
Reference
- (Commission, 2016) (Commission, 2016) https://www.lawreform.ie/_fileupload/RevisedActs/WithAnnotations/HTML/en_act_2001_0025.htm
- (WHO, 2016) https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/
- (Dyvonne, 2018) https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/hidden-costs-of-consumer-debt/