According to the World Health Organisation Global Health Estimates, there were reportedly 804,000 deaths by suicide in 2012. In my estimates, if we are to factor in unreported and unclassified suicides the suicide toll is more than likely at least double the report numbers. The highest suicide trends are disproportionately prevalent in western nations, in […]
February 2015
Last year, on August 4, a 22 year old Yamatji woman who had committed no crime, died needlessly but also in the worst of circumstances in a police lockup in regional Western Australia. Ms Dhu died 48 hours after her detainment on unpaid fines. South Hedland Police had been called to an alleged disorderly and […]
One quarter of the Western Australian prison population is comprised of fine defaulters – criminalised because of their poverty. 1,300 of the State’s 5,300 inmates are doing jail time for not being able to pay their fines. But jail time makes no sense for this majorly poverty related civil offence. In Western Australia, people jailed […]
The Western Australia Labor Party sells itself at just about every coalface rally as opposed to the incumbent Government’s draconian sentencing laws. It constantly blames the Liberal Government for the record high prison population, for the world record high arrest and jail rates of the State’s First Peoples, for overcrowded prisons and for preventable deaths […]
The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion for several months has been urging the Western Australian State Government to implement the Custody Notification Service. This urging comes in response to the deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander detainees in police lock ups. Last August, a 22 year old Yamatji woman needlessly died in […]
For weeks now the rumours have swirled that National Indigenous Television would come under the crossfire of reduced funding by Government to SBS. Weeks ago, insiders at NITV told me that their signature piece, the daily NEWS program, was slated for replacement by a ‘cheaper’ format. They said that NITV stalwart, Malaarndirri McMarthy was “holding […]
Each suicide is not only a personal tragedy but dramatically affects the lives of families. With one person reportedly suiciding every 40 seconds around our world, suicide has become a public health issue. With each suicide it is estimated that there are scores of attempted suicides and tens of thousands of intentional self-harm hospitalisations. According […]
Whereas it was reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics that for the period 2000 to 2010 one in 24 of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths were by suicide, in the period since this rate has increased to one in 20. The suicide rate is even higher than is reported. But this already […]
Around the world, more than 800,000 people die by suicide per year. It is more likely that the true number of suicides is closer to two million. The impact on families of suicides and unnatural deaths are devastating and long reaching. On average more people die by suicide than die due to wars and civil strife. […]
More than 600 suicides each year in Australia are of persons born overseas. This high number of suicides accounts for nearly 26 per cent of Australian suicides. Migrants – and former refugees – face overwhelming trauma, pressures and hurdles in their new country. But the suicide numbers among those born overseas are higher among those […]
General News
- March 9, 2021
Australia’s governments must end health discrimination in its prisons. An incarcerated child must not be a second-class citizen. Nor any adult. We must ask, why are our governments dishing the vulnerable jailed, second-class healthcare? When evaluating the nation’s carceral system, we are […]
- February 2, 2021
When will the cries of the homeless be heard? Is there some sort of grotesque caste system in Western Australia? The anti-humanism is a brutal public spectacle. On the last day of January, the Western Australian Government actuated five days […]
- December 3, 2020
West Australia is the nation’s backwater. It is the mother of injustices, inequalities and the draconian. West Australia and the Northern Territory leave the have-nots that far behind, for many their lot appears irreparable. If there is a Mason-Dixon line […]
- September 22, 2020
There are many faces to homelessness. A 51-year-old woman walked into my Perth office. She has lived thirteen consecutive years street-homeless. Not long ago, she spent eighteen months sleeping her nights in the same park. She is weary, harrowed by […]
- September 3, 2020
Often beleaguered by international aid work I have lifelong been involved in; the increasing unmet needs, the mongrel injustices, I have argued the horrendous lie of our generation is that poverty is being reduced around the world. There are countries […]
- March 10, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – In 2014, I disaggregated to the Kimberley’s First Nations peoples, the nation’s highest suicide rate, one of the world’s highest, at over 70 suicides per 100,000 population (First Nations), thereabouts seven times the national rate. Fortunately, although […]
- February 18, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – More than 51 months ago I wrote an article on the imperatives of forgiveness and redemption. This remains true. We journey together in one form or another, we can either salt the earth or jag the road, […]
- January 29, 2020
By Gerry Georgatos – Trae lost his eleven-year-old brother to suicide. Nine months later he lost his mother to suicide. Trae was the last to see his brother. Half an hour later he went looking for his little brother. In the […]
- January 21, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – Children as young as 9 years have been lost to suicide, three in fact in recent years. Australians should ask, why? Proportionally, more children aged 14 years and less have been lost so far this century compared […]
- December 10, 2019
Gerry Georgatos – A mother suicides, a father suicides, their child was a suicide. Not once has this occurred but untold times. Over the years I have warned of mothers and fathers that would be near certain lost to suicide […]
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