Brekky Scraps: A Deeper Problem
“Imagine if this young girl wasn’t Indigenous and from the Kimberley. Imagine if she was caucasian and lived in Sydney?”
Suicide has reached a 10 year high in Australia, at a time when mental health is in focus and help is around more than ever. Troubling still is that more middle-aged people and women are taking their lives. It is a very important issue that we should be talking about and much more assistance is needed in this area. There have been calls to double the amount of funding. But there is one important story of suicide that got lost this week.
A 10 year old girl in the Kimberley took her own life. Just what kind of environment and headspace was this girl in that she felt suicide was the only way out? As Stan Grant says, when most other girls are enjoying school and growing up.. this girl was dealing with emotions that no-one should have to. Even more tragically, her sister took her own life last year. After focusing on suicide and the increased numbers.. surely a story like this would hit a lot harder than it did. Wouldn’t most newstime bulletins cover it? Worse yet, this young girls death is one of 19 (!) Indigenous people to take their lives since December! Yes December! Clearly a huge problem is happening here.. why aren’t we hearing more about it?
Imagine if this young girl wasn’t Indigenous and from the Kimberley. Imagine if she was caucasian and lived in Sydney? No doubt it would be front page news and we would have heard about it all week. A group of teenagers in QLD who nearly got lost down a drain but were later found safe in class got more coverage.. even the bleedin’ Royal Family’s secret trip to the snow got more coverage..
It was only about a month ago that the Closing the Gap report came out, where we as a nation shamefully revealed that apart from only a couple of bright points, the situation is getting worse and the gap is widening between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Obviously these things take time to fix and address, but they won’t if we don’t talk about them and properly address them when they happen.
The lack of coverage of this story in mainstream news, apart from a few digital outlets and the SBS, only adds to the deafening silence on this and many other issues. This silence leads to ignorance. Suicide is a real issue affecting Australians, but there is a concentrated problem in parts of the country we don’t hear about. Help is needed there more than ever.
If you or anyone you know needs help please contact BeyondBlue on 1300 224 636,Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
You can hear Mitch Monday-Friday 6-9am
@meetchbeeyat
