Both Koreas have abysmal suicide rates
It’s well known that South Korea has a soaring suicide rate, but it turns out the problem is even worse in North Korea, according to a report released by World Health Organization (WHO) this week.
The report estimated 9,790 North Koreans committed suicides in 2012.
It reached the figure by considering a range of statistically predictive factors, as North Korea has remained as one of the most secretive states in the world.
One of the harshest factors leading to the figure is the regime’s strict punishments, which can be handed down to three generations of the criminal’s family.
Sandra Fahy, assistant professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, told the Guardian that some North Korean defectors killed themselves to evade collective punishments.
The WHO report raised alarms about the South as well, where the country’s suicide rate was 29.8 per 100,000 people.
The figure ranked third highest in the world, following that of Guyana and North Korea.
“Koreans are reluctant to speak openly about their problems out of fear of being considered weak or unstable, and that just makes their situations worse,” South Korean psychiatrist Kim Hyun-chung told the Guardian.