Madrid: “Spain grapples with a grim reality: an average of eleven people takes their own lives daily, a number on the rise, and the necessary preventive actions are conspicuously absent,” remarked Victoria de la Serna, who tragically lost her son to suicide over a decade ago.
She expressed her deep frustration at the inadequate attention given to suicide prevention, which remains a highly sensitive and avoided topic in the country.
By her side, her 31-year-old daughter, Maria Fernandez-Cavada, drew attention to the numerous public awareness campaigns targeting road safety, cancer prevention, and gender-based violence, effectively reducing fatalities in recent years.
She stressed that discussing death itself is challenging, but addressing the subject of suicide is even more daunting. She described it as a devastating emotional explosion that shatters families as she reminisced while looking through photographs of her late brother.
Spain’s latest statistics reveal approximately eight suicides per 100,000 inhabitants annually, placing the country below the European average of 11.3, according to World Bank data from 2019.
However, unlike the overall trend in Europe, where suicide rates have been decreasing for the past two decades, Spain is witnessing an unexplained rise in suicides, which cannot be solely attributed to the impact of the pandemic, the influence of social media, or increasing levels of anxiety and poverty.
Last year, Spain reached a new record with 4,097 suicides, up from 3,371 two decades earlier. Clinical psychologist Javier Jimenez, the honorary president of RedAIPIS-FAeDS, a charity dedicated to suicide research and prevention, pointed out that these figures are likely underestimated.
He argued that the official statistics fail to account for the fact that many of the approximately 8,000 accidental deaths that occur annually are, in fact, suicides, as there is no comprehensive “psychological post-mortem” in place.
Jimenez noted that Spain lags behind other countries in generating more reliable suicide statistics due to the deep-rooted taboo and stigma surrounding suicide, exacerbated by Spain’s historically Catholic solid influence, which condemns suicide as a grave sin.
He also criticized the widespread prescription of antidepressant medication and the inaccessibility of psychological assistance, citing prohibitively high costs and a shortage of therapists as significant barriers to addressing this pressing issue.
AFP/APP—
