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Youth suicide at crisis levels among Indigenous population, experts warn

Queensland coroner Terry Ryan, who cited the ABS in his recent inquest into two young suicide victims, said Indigenous children accounted for almost half of the suicides of children aged between 10 and 17 in Queensland between 2004 and 2012.

Matt Wordsworth ABC News 14 June 2015

Jordan Chapman
Jordan Chapman said he tried to keep his mind off the topic of suicide.

(ABC News)

Teenager Jordan Chapman can name half a dozen young people in his circle of friends who have taken their own lives.

"On Facebook one night she (a friend) just inboxed me, seeing how was I going but I didn't have enough time to reply and I just logged out because I was going to sleep," he said.

"I found out the next morning she committed suicide."

Asked how someone of his age deals with that kind of loss, 17-year-old Jordan responded quietly: "I don't know. Just play football, go to school, keep my mind off it, don't really think about it."

The issue of youth suicide has always been a problem, but in 2008 it passed a critical threshold.

That year, suicide overtook road crashes as the number one cause of death for Queenslanders aged between 15 and 24 years old.

But it is among Indigenous children that the rate truly rings alarm bells.

Queensland coroner Terry Ryan, who cited the ABS in his recent inquest into two young suicide victims, said Indigenous children accounted for almost half of the suicides of children aged between 10 and 17 in Queensland between 2004 and 2012.

Across Australia, young Indigenous Australians up to 24 years old are 5.2 times more likely to die due to intentional self-harm than other young people in the same age range.

Rowe Butterworth knows the struggle all too well. His parents split when he was young and as a young teen he grappled to come to terms with his bisexuality.

Rowe Butterworth
Rowe Butterworth descended into drug abuse and self harm after his sister was killed in a fire.

(ABC News)

But he had his older sister Melissa to help.

"She was everything to me," he said.

"My parents were busy so my sister was the only one who was there. She was like my mother. She used to dress me and take me to school and make sure I was ready on time."

But she was killed in a house fire that also claimed the life of her boyfriend.

"I lost myself. I felt as if I had nobody to lean on, or depend on, and nobody to talk to," Rowe said.

Rowe descended into drug abuse and self-harm.

"One time I wanted to hang myself in the school toilets. I used to cut my wrists a lot," he said.

Indigenous suicide issue a humanitarian crisis: researcher

Counsellors often refer to a contagion effect with suicide, with one death sparking another.

In his findings last week, Coroner Ryan declared that "in 2013-14 contagion was identified as a potential factor for seven of the 23 children who suicided in Queensland".

Rosie Bell has been offering support to Rowe in her role as a case worker at YFS, a community organisation that supports young people in the Logan area, south of Brisbane.

"It's a topic that we're all struggling with, and our elders are struggling with suicide, and it's happening in our community too many times," she said.

One in 20 of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will die from suicide.
- Gerry Georgatos, researcher

"They're asking the question: 'Why? What's happening?' So it's just devastating."

Journalist and researcher Gerry Georgatos, who has specialised on the issue of Indigenous suicide, described the problem as a "humanitarian crisis".

"One in 20 of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will die from suicide," he said.

"That's a horrific rate. From a radicalised lens that's the highest in the world."

He said the worst suicide rates were in far north Queensland and the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

"The real solution is in an equivalency of service in these communities, not degrading them further," he said.

"Even relocating people to the larger towns only adds to the social ills that they will be exposed to in those communities."

Mr Georgatos is also a member of the federally funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project.

It was established last year to evaluate the effectiveness of existing prevention programs.

It has held several roundtable meetings across the country to help devise ways to improve services, with a report due later this year.