JAKARTA: The Indonesian government will set up a national registry to record statistics on suicide attempts and deaths as part of prevention efforts.
The registry is among several health policies in a new regulation issued by President Joko Widodo on Tuesday (July 30), reported news outlet Kompas.
The registry is expected to include details such as the individuals’ gender, age, location, method, risk factors as well as motives.
The bulk of the information will come from the Indonesian National Police (Polri), population and civil records, agencies involved in gathering data as well as health services agencies. No timeframe was given for the establishment of the registry.
The presidential order also outlines mitigation and prevention measures for suicide, which include responsible reporting of suicide by the mass media and on social media, as well as guidelines on mitigating thoughts of self-harm by developing life, social and emotional skills.
According to the guidelines, people with suicide risk should be restricted from access to tools, materials or facilities that can trigger attempts, for instance.
The government will provide access to counselling services through suicide prevention hotlines, support through survivor groups, and physical and mental health treatment for survivors.
The relevant government agencies will also prohibit the public from abandoning, shackling, or committing violence against people with mental disorders, or ordering others to do so, the health regulation states.
Netizens welcomed the new regulation but cautioned that data, especially for attempted suicide cases, must be handled carefully.
Indonesia suffered a crippling ransomware attack in recent weeks on its national data centres that affected 239 institutions, including 30 government ministries and agencies.
The hacker group Brain Cipher claimed responsibility and demanded US$8 million from the government to unlock the data, but later unexpectedly released the decryption key for free.
“Suicide attempts recorded by the government will have the potential for stigmatisation if it leaks,” commented a netizen on social media platform X. The netizen hoped more details on safeguards would be spelled out in the regulations.
Based on data from Indonesian police’s National Criminal Information Center (Pusiknas), there were 287 suicides in Indonesia from January to March this year.
Of these cases, about a-third or 97 cases took place in Central Java.
UNDER-REPORTED BY 860 PER CENT
According to a groundbreaking study published in February, however, suicides are likely under-reported by about 860 per cent in Indonesia based on data from 2016 to 2018. Reasons include families asking for a suicide not to be reported, and suicide-related investigations that are not pursued by the police.
Through a national government partnership, the researchers from various institutions and universities in Australia and Indonesia obtained non-public data on attempts and suicides from 2016 to 2021, and put together Indonesia’s first suicide statistics profile.
Indonesia’s national suicide attempt rate was 2.25 attempts per 100,000 individuals, according to the study, titled “Indonesia’s first suicide statistics profile: an analysis of suicide and attempt rates, underreporting, geographic distribution, gender, method, and rurality”.
The ratio of female to male suicides was found to be 1: 2.11.
The highest suicide rates were in Bali, Riau Islands, Yogyakarta, Central Java and Central Kalimantan. “Further investigation is needed to identify underlying patterns in these priority provinces,” stated the study, published in The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia.
The data provides “essential information which can allow for critical steps in suicide prevention, such as means restriction and allocation of resources between rural and urban areas, as well as certain geographic regions”, the researchers wrote.
“Given the scarcity of resources for suicide prevention and mental health, resources must be used judiciously”, together with data-driven approaches to maximise effectiveness, they said.
