Causes of Suicide in District Ghizer Gilgit-Baltistan

Abstract

This thesis is an effort to examine the social causes of the increasing rate of suicide in Ghizer: one of the seven districts of Gilgit-Baltistan. In Ghizer, Yasin valley and Poniyal have shown higher suicide records, I selected tehsil Poniyal of Ghizer district as the locale of this research for two reasons (1) alcohol is prepared and used in this area and I had postulated a hypothesis that alcohol may be the main cause of the higher suicide rate in this area which though could not be proved, (2) the people of this tehsil are comparatively more liberal and friendly than those of the other three tehsils of Ghizer i.e. Gupis, Yasin, and Ishkomen. I have attempted to find out the causes of suicide in the region depending mainly on case studies. Attempted suicide cases proved very helpful in finding answer to some of the main questions of this study. Besides this method, observation, focus group discussions, schedules, and interviews were also conducted in the six months of the field work. I have concluded this thesis with two main social variables as the root causes of the higher suicide rate in the area. These are extreme strictness and higher freedom. The families where suicide was recorded in are either having an extremely strict/tense environment or higher freedom that is neither expected nor accepted in that particular society. The extremes of both of these variables let the children involved in activities like love, which when couldn’t be implemented, leads to suicide. Most of the suicide cases were related with love and marriage issues and the victims fall in the age group 14-30. Many writers and general mass of this area consider domestic violence as one of the major cause of the issue and I believe this also falls in the category of families where there is extreme strict environment. There was not even a single case related to poverty, which is one of the major causes of suicide in other parts of the country. For better understanding of my findings and for support or dissent with these, I would suggest the readers to go through the case studies.