North Koreans live in poverty, a restrictive environment and have no way to leave the country. These factors may account for the country's high suicide rate, the second worst in the world.
The World Health Organization released a report entitled Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative that found the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had 9,790 suicides in 2012. The numbers between males and females nearly matched.
Gathering data for the totalitarian state proved difficult for the WHO. North Korea penalizes suicide victims' families and may report deaths that occur during interrogation or incarceration as suicide. The organization estimated their figures by "factoring in a range of statistically predictive factors," according to The Guardian.
"I heard economic hardship was the main reason, but really, for anyone who is gay or lesbian or has mental health issues, life in North Korea is really tough," Sandra Fahy, author of the forthcoming book, "Marching Through Suffering: Loss, Survival and North Korea," told The Guardian.
At least 800,000 people commit suicide every year around the world, and one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds. The small country of Guyana in northern South America had the highest rate of suicide at 44.2 people per 100,000, but the problem weighs heavy on the Korean peninsula and much of Southeast Asia.
The WHO recorded a rate of 38.5 suicides per 100,000 in North Korea and 28.9 per 100,000 in South Korea. The southern country has seen its suicide rate climb since an economic downturn in the late 1990s and had 17,908 suicides in 2012. Male suicide rates outnumbered female suicide rates by more than double.
The Democratic People's Republic tries to use this trend to assert "superiority" in the region.
"North Korean media tends to use the high suicide rate in the South as proof to show off the superiority of their social system, and they barely mention North Koreans taking their own lives," Park Sang-min, the professor who led the Unification Medical Center study, told Yonhap News Agency.
