date=11/19/96
type=background report
number=5-35000
title=sri lanka suicide
byline=matthew chance
dateline=colombo
content=
voiced at: 

intro:  the authorities in sri lanka have stopped all 
government-run newspapers from reporting stories about suicide.  
no  official reason for the ban has been given, but suicide among
sri lanka's frustrated youth is an increasing problem -- the 
country is now said to have the one of the world's highest rates 
of suicide, with more than twenty young men and women killing 
themselves every day.  matthew chance now reports on what pushes 
so many sri lankans over the edge.

                    //.act nightclub music.//

text:  a fashionable nightclub, crowded with young sri lankans, 
blares dance music out into the night.  the people here are the 
lucky ones -- colombo's social and economic elite.  for most sri 
lankans, the cost of a night out here would be as much as they 
could earn in a month.  the gap between the country's rich and 
poor is ever widening -- a fact which academics like professor 
janaka de silva say is a root cause of the frustration that leads
so many sri lankans to commit suicide.

                      //.janaka de silva.//

         there are unattainable goals that these young people 
         have which pushes them to the brink.  and there are a 
         lot of cultural problems.  for instance, there is t-v, 
         which shows westernized romances and things like that.  
         then there are their homes, where parents are very 
         strict with them and wouldn't allow them to go out with 
         girls and so on.  this kind of thing they cannot cope 
         with.

                          //.end act.//

familiar problems to many, and not just in the developing world. 
but researchers say sri lankans appear particularly bad at 
handling the strains of modern living.  this is a country where 
suicide has become endemic.  more than twenty young men and women
kill themselves every day.  five times that number try but fail 
to end their own lives.  

alcoholism, stress and a civil war that has wracked the country 
for the past thirteen years may all be factors.  but laksmi 
ratnayake of the sumithryo counseling service says the problem is
primarily cultural.

                   //.act laksmi ratnayake.//

         could it be that sri lankans are more emotional and that
         they are unable to cope?  they are  not  taught to cope 
         at school:  that is  not  something that is talked 
         about.  also, our culture is such that we do  not  talk 
         about whatever is bothering us with anybody else.  we do
         not  talk about anything that happens in the family with
         outsiders, because there is tremendous loyalty to the 
         family.  even in the family, we are discouraged from 
         talking each other about our problems.  we would never 
         talk to a parent, or someone like that.

                          //.end act.//

although there may be  no  single explanation for the self 
destructive trend sri lanka, this isolation could understandably 
be the reason for many suicides.  the government is taking little
action -- although it has banned state newspapers from reporting 
suicides in a bid to stem copy-cat deaths.  but critics say it is
failing to deal with the problem head on.  social stigma attached
to suicide has plagued all independent efforts to counsel the 
young.  and unless attitudes are somehow changed, health workers 
say the problem can only get worse.  (signed)

neb/mc/ac-t/mmk

19-nov-96 4:44 am est (0944 utc)
nnnn

source: voice of america