Tunisia’s suicide rate skyrockets since Bouazizi’s death

Tunisia’s suicide rate has skyrocketed since Mohammad Bouazizi’s self-immolation in 2010 triggered the Arab Spring. Like Bouazizi, whose death was a protest at unemployment and police harassment, hundreds of Tunisians have committed suicide over similar grievances.

365 suicides were recorded last year in a population of 11 million. According to Fatma Charfi, head of the Committee for the Prevention of Suicide, the current rising suicide rate “had already been noticed … over a decade ago.”

Charfi heads the committee that was set up in 2015 in response to expert warnings of the high levels of suicides and has been charged by the Health Ministry to collect better data and solutions.

Suicides are notably higher among younger Tunisians; around half of victims were aged between 20 and 39.

Though the rate is relatively low compared to other countries, the real figure could be much higher due to social and religious taboos associated with suicide in Tunisia and the fact that Tunisia does not have a national suicide register.

After Bouazizi’s death, self-immolation featured in 15 per cent of cases after the more common suicide of hanging which was the cause of 60 percent of deaths.

“It was expected that in 2015, we would start to experience a decline [in self-immolations], but it has remained stable since 2011,” Charfi explained.

The suicide rate can be linked to Tunisia’s economic struggles since its revolution where successive governments failed to resolve poverty, unemployment and corruption.

Mehdi Ben Khelil, a forensic scientist of the Charles-Nicolle Hospital in Tunis, found an increase in suicides between 2011 and 2012 before peaking again in 2014.

“There are more people without jobs [and] with financial problems,” he said linking the suicides with Tunisia’s tepid economic situation.

“We are talking about suicide in Tunisia…mostly in an inappropriate way,” Ourida Boussada, a lecturer at the country’s oldest journalism school, the International Peace and Security Institute, recently said.

According to Boussada, too much coverage was sensationalist and revealed intimate details about the victim’s personal life.

“We must tackle suicide … as a public health problem, not isolating it to a single cause so that vulnerable people will not be tempted to take the same course of action.”