Nuuk - Her name was Tarnip. She was 14. One day in September she simply jumped from an apartment building balcony in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, plunging to her death before the eyes of shocked friends and neighbours.
Yet another suicide, according to police, adding to the devastating statistics on this island where the suicide rate is considered among the highest in the world.
The semi-autonomous Danish territory with its mere 57 000 inhabitants counts about 50 suicides each year, amounting to approximately 100 suicides per 100 000 people. That is nearly six times more than on mainland Denmark, where there are about 17 suicides per 100 000 inhabitants each year, according to a National Institute of Public Health report.
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In just the quarter century since Greenland was granted internal autonomy in 1979, more than 1 250 of the island's inhabitants have chosen to take their own lives, with youths and especially boys between the ages of 15 and 19 heavily represented in the statistics.
| 'Their parents don't have time to spend with them' |
To remedy this tragic trend, Greenland's local government in mid-September launched a comprehensive plan to counteract the phenomenon, especially focusing on what is widely seen as one of the main roots of the problem: troubled family situations.
"We must act by launching local initiatives in every last hamlet to help potential suicide victims, especially youths, and improve the wellbeing of families," Greenland Family and Health Minister Asii Chemnitz Narup said.
According to the Association Greenlandic Children, between 10 and 15 percent of Greenland families need help to properly take care of their children and to give them the attention and love they need to develop.
Panninguaq Abelsen, the host of youth radio program "Innuusuttut Akisunnerat", or "Youths emerge from the shadows", says she is struck by accounts she hears from children as young as seven "talking about how they are abandoned each time their parents get paid, left to fend for themselves as daddy and mommy drink themselves silly in bars without a second thought for" their children.
"Some of them complain that their parents don't have time to spend with them. Others talk about violence between their parents and against them," she said, pointing out that the violence to a large extent is a symptom of rapid changes that have transformed the indigenous Inuit community of hunters and fishermen into a modern society.
"Other children talk of tabu subjects like rape and other forms of sexual abuse committed by people close to them, including by their fathers, that they don't dare talk about openly due to loyalty to their family and to avoid a scandal, especially in hamlets and in small, isolated villages where everyone knows everyone," she added.
The high levels of alcoholism and domestic abuse on Greenland are thought to contribute to the island's towering suicide rate. A recent study of pupils' health here revealed for instance that among children with alcoholic parents and among sexually abused children, as many as 80 percent had toyed with the idea of suicide.
Abelsen's radio programme, which was launched by the Association Greenlandic Children in February 2003 and which airs twice a month, aims to get some of these youths to come out of the shadows and talk about their worries.
"We question them in the street, giving them the opportunity to open up in an anonymous manner and to talk about their problems, their hopes and their dreams, into the microphone, by mail or on the show's very popular internet site," she said.
The website displays letters from teens along with answers to their questions, and has so far been visited by a record 15 000 people.
In an attempt to get youths on the island to confront the growing problem of teen suicides head-on, the radio programme will dedicate one of its shows in October to the issue.
The show will allow "young listeners to call the radio for free and anonymously open up their hearts and talk to psychologists and social councillors", she said, adding that she hoped the show would offer some "help to those who feel tempted to kill themselves". - Sapa-AFP
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