SUICIDE RATE AMONG NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH ON RISE

Washington, 10 Jumadil Awal 1435/11 March 2014 (MINA) – Statistics show a growing number of young Native Americans, who are struggling with problems like poverty and unemployment, are taking their lives.

According to the Washington Post, young Native Americans commit suicide more than three times the national average. In some Native American communities, the suicide rate among the youth is ten times the national average.

Experts say economic and social problems facing Native Americans and the broken promises to the nation’s 566 tribes are the reasons for the increasing suicide rate.

“The circumstances are absolutely dire for Indian children,” Theresa M. Pouley, the chief judge of the Tulalip Tribal Court in the state of Washington and a member of the Indian Law and Order Commission, told the Post.

“One-quarter of Indian children live in poverty, versus 13 percent in the United States. They graduate high school at a rate 17 percent lower than the national average,” she added, Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reorting.

 “They’re twice as likely as any other race to die before the age of 24. They have a 2.3 percent higher rate of exposure to trauma. They have two times the rate of abuse and neglect. Their experience with post-traumatic stress disorder rivals the rates of returning veterans from Afghanistan.”

Byron Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North Dakota who chaired the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, also said that the high number of young people on reservations who commit suicide is directly related to a “trail of broken promises to American Indians.”

He pointed to treaties dating as far back as the 19th century that promised better health care, education, and housing for people on reservations but never delivered the promises made. (T/P04/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)