INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, July 4
It was a regular Saturday for Devi Prasad Poudel of Kathmandu, on June 29
He had lunch with his wife and 16-year-old daughter, Sadikshya
After lunch, his wife was occupied with domestic chores and Sadikshya left for her room
Poudel left home to attend to a business.
Later in the afternoon, Sadikshya mother felt eerie silence in her home
That was when she went to check on her daughter
What she saw after opening the door left her frozen in shock and disbelief
Her child was dead! Sadikshya had committed suicide by hanging.
Sadikshya was not an introvert
She was good at public speaking and had interest in music, dance and acting, according to Poudel
But results of the Secondary Education Examination were published on June 27 had dampened her spirit.
&She was hoping to secure A+ but had
&We had consoled her saying that her grade was okay.& It is has not been confirmed if the SEE grade had prompted her suicide as police are
still trying to find out the cause of the suicide.
A day before Sadikshya took her own life, Samir Lungwa, an 11-year-old boy from Lalitpur
Bagmati-2, Malta, had also committed suicide
In a suicide note, Samir wrote that he had felt neglected by his parents, brother and teachers.
Sadikshya and Samir are two of the 216
children across Nepal, who committed suicide in the first nine months of the current fiscal from mid-July 2018 to mid-April 2019
Of the children (people below 18) who committed suicide this year, almost 64 per cent, or 138, were girls and 78 were boys, according to
Most of them, 80.6 per cent had committed suicide by hanging themselves
Other causes of suicide were poison consumption, setting oneself ablaze and drowning.
Children who committed suicide account for 5.5 per
cent of the total suicides recorded this fiscal year
Suicide is an outcome of depression, according to Arun Raj Kunwar, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Kanti Children Hospital
&Children get depressed when their parents demand higher grades, when they are continuously bullied or face discrimination, when they have
to deal with chronic health problems or when they face relationship issues,& Kunwar said.
These days, children even take their own lives if
their demand for material goods is not met or if parents disapprove their friendship with someone, according to Neena Rai, assistant
professor at the Department of Psychiatry, KIST Medical College.
&These may sound like petty reasons to commit suicide, but there are
children who feel ignored when they face rejection from parents
This can cause stress and depression in them,& said Kunwar.
Many parents in Nepal are not aware that children too can become victims of
depression, according to Kunwar
Worse, many parents think depression is a severe mental disorder
So, many children do not even report their depressive state
This is what compounds the problem, according to Kunwar.
Children who are depressed may express feelings of hopelessness, display rage and
mood swings, increase consumption of alcohol or drugs, show anxiety, act recklessly, and withdraw from family, friends and social circles
They may also lose self-esteem and self-confidence.
&If parents and teachers notice these behavioural changes, they must seek help,&
Kanti Children Hospital is one such place where help can be sought
It offers 24-hour helpline service for troubled children
&We provide counselling service to children from our helpline
We also reach out to parents and tell them to immediately take their children to nearby health centres that offer mental health service if
the counselling doesn&t work,& said Ram Pukar Shah, consultant psychologist at the hospital
The hospital gets an average of two calls a day on its helpline from children facing depression
The hospital Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Out Patient Department also receives around 30 child patients facing mental health problems,
such as depression, on a daily basis.
There are particular occasions when child suicide rate jumps
Many children commit suicide right after SEE results are published
Child suicide rate also increases during the crop plantation season when pesticides and insecticides are stored in houses.&Parents should be
careful during these times,& said Kunwar.
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