Eight percent of Korean girls attempted suicide

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

Eight percent of female teenagers have attempted to kill themselves, a survey showed Thursday. Nearly 30 percent of female teenagers have at least once thought of committing suicide, according to a survey of 69,754 middle and high school students by the Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family.

The percentage for male students was lower — 5.5 percent answered they have tried to kill themselves and 16.4 percent said they have considered suicide over the last year.

Girls were more prone to suicide and other harmful actions due to a broken family, financial problems and violence at school, as 18.3 percent of female students complained of this, compared with 14.7 percent of boys.

Nearly eight in 100 teenage girls said they have been sexually assaulted over the past year.

Source: The Korea Times

Comments

[senko2211.livejournal.com]

wow, that's terrible!

[volume1995.livejournal.com]

omfg this is terrible ffffffuuu

[notochrasy.livejournal.com]

and to think this only would include cases where people actually admit to it ;____;

[snoozy.livejournal.com]

D:

[letseaticecream.livejournal.com]

This is so sad.. :(

[syimato.livejournal.com]

no surprise. since their society is crazy and evil especially in terms of body mass index, face size, double/single eyelids, tall girls, s-curve body and so on

[0kiwi0.livejournal.com]

yeah i knwo what you mean, it's no big surprise but still it's horrible ) :

[inudela.livejournal.com]

not to mention immense academic pressure

[spidersky.livejournal.com]

Unrealistic beauty standards are the norm in all parts of the world, not just S. Korea.

[jaemin0.livejournal.com]

but mostly there

[spidersky.livejournal.com]

Not really though. It just seems really extreme because their beauty standards are different. I'm sure Koreans thinks we (Westerners, I mean) have messed up beauty standards as well.

[syimato.livejournal.com]

but S.Korea top them all. we hv the best examples. the society always criticize idols body eventhough to us... it is just plain healthy! even the previous article about a gagman critisize T-ara Soyeon nose and urge her to get a plastic surgery. Her nose is high and fine! i dont know which area that she has to fix. they even critisize Idol's face size, which the ideal is the size of your palm. WTF?! they even have the ideal measurement! their society is sick.

[nyankee.livejournal.com]

It has, I think, more to do with the fact that no one addresses the issue. Asia is a very self-aware part of the world, it's true, but they're also not as private as they act like they are. The truth of the matter is that in most areas, everybody knows everyone's business! It's that in their culture, no one sees fit to address it, because it's not supposed to be their business and they're not supposed to know anyway.

[antique-dahlia.livejournal.com]

That is so horrible.

Its because of all the outside factors pulling at them. Like someone else mentioned, the extreme pressures on body image. That might be an issue all over the world, but it seems extremely predominant in Korea. Not to mention they are growing up in a society that seems to STILL be male dominated. Men seem to get away with A LOT in Korea. Women seem like they are still looked down upon.

[dieu-existence.livejournal.com]

"Girls were more prone to suicide and other harmful actions due to a broken family, financial problems and violence at school" - what about the machism?

[brianathebard.livejournal.com]

Just from watching Korean dramas and seeing the mob effect bullying some of those girls go through is heartbreaking. idk how they do it.

[mappingemotion.livejournal.com]

You would think that they'd start to make the appropriate changes in society to try and reverse this. :|

[ballad.livejournal.com]

don't say if one of them suicide because of their precious oppa got a girlfriend/married D8

[harkk.livejournal.com]

by the Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family.
Equality? /raises brow. Righhhht.

Well, maybe the MOGEF can learn something from the survey results and actually start doing something to improve the situation. It's a long shot since it's the mindset of the society that needs to be changed but hey, an attempt is better than none.

[nyankee.livejournal.com]

Articles like this are exactly why I'm going into cross-cultural psychiatry. Poor girls. They can't get the help that they need because no one is willing to admit that they know what's going on and reach out.

[bumie.livejournal.com]

this is so sad , i don't even know where to start it ... I blame the society

[mahmoodnooni23.livejournal.com]

;_______________;

[a4lem.livejournal.com]

It's always sad to read about things like this. I feel so sorry for those girls. And I feel blessed to be living a life where suicide is the last thing on my mind.

[qrizta.livejournal.com]

terrible ;__;
Tablo is correct that the sexism is very ingrained in the society. Girls get so much pressure be it on their appearance, mannerism, expected character, etc.

[donutism.livejournal.com]

Why am I not surprised.

[xaoiholic.livejournal.com]

This is why its my dream to become an English teacher slash therapist/social worker at a Japanese or Korean highschool. Depression ensues at that age the most..