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COPENHAGEN: One in four young women in Greenland has tried to kill herself, according to a study published Wednesday in the Danish semi-autonomous territory that has one of the world's highest suicide rates.
"Young people aged 15 to 29 ... are the most affected, with 25 percent of women and 17 percent of men in that age group attempting suicide," Peter Bjerregaard, who headed up the study, told AFP.
Some 2,300 Greenlanders were questioned between 2005 and 2007 for the survey.
Bjerregaard said it was difficult to explain why suicide attempts were so frequent among youths in Greenland, which has some 57,000 inhabitants.
"It probably has something to do with the situation of young people in Greenland, where school isn't always up to standards. A high proportion of parents are also unemployed or have alcohol problems, and there's a lot of sexual abuse of children," Bjerregaard said.
"If we look at actual deaths by suicide, there are some 45 to 50 each year. These figures are very high, among the highest in the world," he said, noting that suicide trends had been "stable for the past decade."
In 2005, the latest year for which preliminary figures were available, there were some 100 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants in Greenland, compared to 11.6 per 100,000 in mainland Denmark.
Suicides were more common in the eastern part of Greenland, a more rural and sparsely populated area "where there are fewer education and employment opportunities" than in the western part.
Among people over the age of 18, 13 percent of women and 9.1 percent of men in Greenland had already tried to commit suicide, the study showed.
"Suicide attempts are twice as common among women but men more often succeed at their attempts," Bjerregaard said.
Among adults aged 32 to 50, 10 percent of both women and men had attempted suicide. - AFP/sh
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