Over 33,000 People Suicide in Japan

TOKYO  - More than 33,000 people committed suicide in Japan last year. The suicide rate exceeds 30,000 people in ten years in a row even though the Japanese government campaign to reduce one of the highest suicide cases in the world.

The report issued by the Japanese National Police Agency showed 33,093 of their own life ended in 2007. This figure is the second largest of the suicide record reaches 34,427 inhabitants in 2003. Most of the reasons of suicides is debt, family problems, depression and other health problems. There are also hikes the number of cases of suicide using hydrogen sulphide gas discharging toxic made from detergent.

Method of suicide with detergent or produce toxins in this household had been spread through the messages on the Internet. Police have urged Internet service providers in order to remove the instructions for producing the toxic gas from a number of sites.

The number of suicides in Japan rose sharply after the economic turmoil that resulted in the 1980’s most Japanese people lost their jobs and were in debt. The suicide rate among people aged 60 years or older increased 9 percent to around 12,100 cases last year. While cases of suicide in teenagers fell slightly.

From January to May 2008, nearly 520 people committed suicide using hydrogen sulphide gas. There were only 30 cases that included the use of these gases in the same period in 2007.

According to the World Health Organization, WHO, the suicide rate in Japan’s second largest spelled out in 8 groups of the G8 industrialized countries after Russia. In June 2007, the Japanese government promised to reduce the suicide rate more than 20 percent by the year 2016 (for Olympics Games 2016?)

However, Japanese social workers say the problem is complex and requires time to find a solution. Akita prefecture in northern Japan which is a region with a suicide rate highest in Japan in the last 13 years has run the programs suicide prevention since 2000.

“We thank the government think of a way to suppress the number of suicide cases, but they do not know what is really happening,” said Yukiko Nishihara, founder of the Center for World Suicide Prevention Befrienders. Annual suicides in Akita consisting of approximately 1 million people reached its peak in 2003 with approximately 520 cases before it fell to 420 cases in 2007.

“Not like disease, the causes of suicide lie in a broad social problem,” said Sato. “So the important thing to note is to understand the changes in social life - such as unemployment spikes and swelling debt,” he said.