F R Halpin's back with this strangely worded question for me: "Can a community grow with self-murder [he means suicide but prefers his own type of offensive arch-Catholic rhetoric] being a rule of thumb?"
I'd like to help him out with some facts and figures about at least one cause of NZ's tragically high rate of suicide, which brings lifelong grief to so many families and friends of those who cannot bear to face another day.
I hope the NZ Catholic church succeeds in its plea to undergo the scrutiny of the pending NZ Government inquiry into historical abuse of children in state care. Meanwhile,
Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse ran for five years before reporting last year. It noted that of the 1880 alleged perpetrators from within the Catholic Church, 572 were priests. Of sexual abuse survivors who gave evidence in the private sessions 19.8 per cent said they had suicidal thoughts and 16.4 per cent said they had attempted suicide.
Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse ran for five years before reporting last year. It noted that of the 1880 alleged perpetrators from within the Catholic Church, 572 were priests. Of sexual abuse survivors who gave evidence in the private sessions 19.8 per cent said they had suicidal thoughts and 16.4 per cent said they had attempted suicide.
Australian child protection charity Bravehearts reported in 2015 that the suicide rate among young people who had experienced sexual abuse was 10.7 to 13 times higher than national suicide rates.
It also said the risk of adults dying by suicide increased up to 12-fold if they had been abused in their childhood.
One typical survivor of priestly abuse as a child gave evidence of friends and classmates who had committed suicide, from the age of 13 to adulthood. He said: "It feels like wave after wave of the kids dying from the 1970s until now."
Like all those whose suffering drives them to contemplate suicide, these abuse victims need love, kindness, understanding and professional therapy. They don't deserve to read vicious word games.
CAROL WEBB
Whanganui
Whanganui
