STATE OF THE WORLD's INDIGENOUs PEOpLEs - CINU

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EMBARGOED UNTIL 14 January 2010STATE OF THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLESNot for distributionMental and behavioural health issuesAnother serious concern in indigenous communities is mental and behavioural health issues such as alcoholism,drug abuse, depression and suicide, particularly among indigenous youth. These have all been linked to past andcurrent experiences of colonization as a clear “psychopathology” and are exacerbated by conditions of povertyand marginalization. 42 A WHO report stated the following:Mental health must be considered as being deeply enmeshed with economic and politicalconcerns such as poverty, hunger and malnutrition, social change, and violence anddislocation… Furthermore, mental, social and behavioural health problems cannot be assessedin isolation from one another, because they “represent overlapping clusters of problems that…interact to intensify each other’s effects on behaviour and well-being”... From this perspective,social pathologies (e.g., substance abuse and violence), health problems, (e.g., heart diseaseand depression) and social conditions (e.g., poverty) are interrelated to such an extent that it isimpossible to differentiate one problem clearly from another. 43In addition to this interrelation, which complicates diagnosis of mental health issues, some Western methods ofdiagnosis are insufficient within the context of contemporary multicultural, multiethnic societies. Because socialand cultural contexts determine the manifestations and symptoms of mental health illnesses such as depression,the methods of diagnosis are culturally constructed. 44SuicideYouth suicide affects societies around the world. The issue has been a particularly painful and sensitivetopic for a number of indigenous peoples, which have experienced disproportionately high rates ofyouth suicide.Youth suicide in indigenous communities takes place in the context of contemporary discriminationand marginalization and historical trauma related to colonization, assimilation and loss of traditionallivelihoods. During the 19th and 20th centuries, for example, some States implemented policies intendedto destroy indigenous cultures, and which isolated children from their families and forcibly stripped themof their traditions, language and religion. Although the reasons for youth suicide are complex and difficultto define, such interference with, and destruction of, cultural structures has caused stress throughoutsubsequent generations that is generally considered to contribute to suicidal behaviour. Indigenous youthtoday face the challenge of striking a balance between their place within their indigenous community andwithin the mainstream society of the country and may feel marginalized from both, resulting in a sense ofsocial isolation. 45 This isolation, compounded by contemporary manifestations of discrimination, such asdisproportionately high levels of poverty and unemployment, may contribute to the high rates of suicideexperienced by certain indigenous tribes or peoples.In Australia, death from self-injury is higher amongst indigenous youth than among the overall Australianyouth population. In 2005 the death rate from self injury for young people aged 15–24 years was 10.4 for the42Cohen (1999), 12.43Cohen (1999), 11 citing Desjarlais et al. (1995).44Cohen (1999), 12.45Center for Disease Control (2007)HEALTH | 169
EMBARGOED UNTIL 14 January 2010STATE OF THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLESNot for distributiontotal Australian population and 17.6 for the Indigenous Australian population. 46 In the United States, suiciderates for American Indian and Alaska Native youth are significantly higher than the national averagefor other population groups. For 5 to 14 year-olds, the suicide rate is 2.6 times higher than the nationalaverage. The disparity grows larger in the later teenage years and into young adulthood. The suicide ratefor American Indian and Alaska Native youth aged 15 to 24 is 3.3 times higher than the national average. 47In the state of Alaska, a study conducted by the Alaska Statewide Suicide Prevention Council found that,although Alaska Natives comprise 16 percent of the state population, they accounted for 39 per cent ofsuicides between 2003 and 2006. The disparity was even greater for Alaskan youth 19 years and youngerwhere, since the early 1990s, Alaska Natives accounted for 19 per cent of the youth population and 60percent of the suicide deaths in that age group. 48In Canada, while there is a great deal of variation among First Nations communities, overall suicide ratesare 5 to 7 times the rate for Canadian youth overall: 126 per 100,000 for First Nations male youth aged 15-24,compared to 24 per 100,000 for Canadian male youth as a whole, and 35 per 100,000 for First Nations femaleyouth, compared to 5 per 100,000 for Canadian female youth.Suicide rates have also been disproportionately high among certain communities of Inuit peoples. Oneresearcher has correlated suicide rates among Inuit peoples in Alaska, Nunavut and Greenland with theperiod when governments encouraged them to move from their traditional territories to villages and towns.The trend began in north Alaska in the 1960s, Greenland in the 1970s and Nunavut in the 1980s. 49 Today,suicide rates among Inuit are the highest in Canada, at eleven times the national average”. 50 In Greenland,suicide rates by young men in East Greenland reached a rate of 1,500 per annum per 100,000 in the 1990s,before beginning to decline. 51 These figures contrast starkly with historical records, which indicate thatInuit suicide rates were traditionally low. The earliest existing data on suicide among Inuit comes fromGreenland, and indicates a low annual suicide rate of 3.0 per year from 1900 to 1930. 52 Records for Nunavutsuggest that there was only one suicide in the region during the entire 1960s. 53In Latin America, suicide rates have risen dramatically within some indigenous peoples that are facingsevere disruptions to traditional ways of life, including “rapid sociocultural change, disturbances intraditional social life, progressive dismantling of extended family structure, and forced relocation toreservations.” 54In Brazil, the Kaiowa, with some 30,000 people, have seen hundreds of young people take their lives in the lasttwo decades as the tribe has fought to keep loggers and farmers off its land. 55 Data collected by the BrazilianMinistry of Health on suicide trends and characteristics in two Guaraní communities from 2000 to 2005 suggeststhat the suicide rate among Guaraní was 19 times higher during this time period than the national rate in Braziland that suicides disproportionately affected Guaraní adolescents and young adults. 5646Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (2008), p.60.47Carmona (2005)48Alaska Injury Prevention Center, Critical Illness and Trauma Foundation, Inc. & American Association of Suicidology (2006), p. 12.49Canadian Press (2008)50Health Canada (2008)51IWGIA (2007)52IWGIA (2007)53Health Canada (2008)54Center for Disease Control (2007)55New York Times (2004).56Center for Disease Control (2007).170 | CHAPTER V
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STATE OF THE WORLD's INDIGENOUs PEOpLEs - CINU

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