With a 25 per cent in­crease in sui­cides over the last eight years, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is urg­ing the Gen Z pop­u­la­tion to re­duce their re­liance on so­cial me­dia, say­ing cy­ber­bul­ly­ing is a lead­ing cause of de­pres­sion.

Deyals­ingh was re­spond­ing to a mo­tion raised in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day by Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit, who called for a holis­tic ap­proach to men­tal health to curb the in­creas­ing trend of self-in­flict­ed deaths. Quot­ing Min­istry of Health (MoH) sta­tis­tics, Mo­hit said fig­ures show that be­tween 2016 and 2019, 371 peo­ple took their lives, an av­er­age of 93 peo­ple per year. Be­tween 2020 and 2023, 478 peo­ple died by self-harm, an av­er­age of 120 per year.

“What the gov­ern­ment must do is adopt an all-em­brac­ing ap­proach via strate­gies to mit­i­gate against per­sons con­tem­plat­ing sui­cide. Mr Deputy Speak­er, a sui­cide hot­line is sim­ply not enough. I know the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment would say we have 800-COPE, but it is sim­ply not enough based on the fig­ures we are deal­ing with,” Mo­hit said.

Speak­ing to the Gen Z pop­u­la­tion, Deyals­ingh said these peo­ple born be­tween 1997 and 2013 show a high­er rate of de­pres­sion and sui­cide. He said in­ter­na­tion­al re­search showed that Gen Zs who use so­cial me­dia more than three hours per week have a twice high­er rate of men­tal dis­ease.

“We keep telling peo­ple to delink from these so­cial me­dia plat­forms be­cause what is hap­pen­ing on so­cial me­dia is cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, which is lead­ing peo­ple to sui­cide around the world. I am sure Trinidad is no ex­cep­tion. It is the fourth lead­ing cause of death, by sui­cide, among peo­ple be­tween the ages of 15 to 29. It is an op­por­tune mo­ment to tell Gen Zs, to tell the young peo­ple, you are not alone,” Deyals­ingh said.

Not­ing Mo­hit’s as­ser­tion that a sui­cide hot­line was not enough, Deyals­ingh said the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty vis­it­ed 22 schools in South Trinidad and spoke to 258 stu­dents and 32 teach­ers about de­pres­sion, self-harm, sui­cide, and cop­ing strate­gies. The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty launched its Calm Project with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, iden­ti­fy­ing youths be­tween ages 12-19 who are most at risk.

He added that peo­ple could ac­cess the Find Care TT web­site and the Fam­i­ly Case Man­age­ment Ser­vices (FCMS) for those whose prob­lems stem from so­cial is­sues. He said some men­tal con­cerns stem from abuse, in­cest, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and mar­i­tal dif­fi­cul­ties. Some were the re­sults of di­min­ish­ing fi­nances as COVID-19 cre­at­ed un­em­ploy­ment is­sues.

Clin­i­cal ther­a­pist Hanif Ben­jamin on Tues­day in re­sponse to the con­cerns raised in Par­lia­ment, said cy­ber­bul­ly­ing was a se­ri­ous con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly com­ing out of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when peo­ple live on­line. Ben­jamin said al­though key­board war­riors were emerg­ing, the is­sue be­came more ap­par­ent dur­ing the pan­dem­ic as child fights moved from the school­yard to the com­put­er. It was why vi­o­lence re­turned when chil­dren went back to the school­yard. How­ev­er, he was un­sure whether cy­ber­bul­ly­ing was a fac­tor in in­creas­ing sui­cides among Gen Zs, as he had not seen any sup­port­ing re­search.

“I do not know if that is an ac­cu­rate state­ment. I think every­one us­es the in­ter­net. I think that it would be a false state­ment to as­so­ciate just Gen Zs with so­cial me­dia plat­forms. I think across the lifes­pan, every­one is very well con­nect­ed, so much so that peo­ple have three to four phones as adults. A lot of peo­ple are now run­ning their busi­ness­es with a cell phone in their hand,” Ben­jamin said.

Ben­jamin said the con­ver­sa­tion should be about sav­ing lives, as feel­ings of self-harm af­fect peo­ple of all ages. There­fore, there is a need for a com­pre­hen­sive study to as­cer­tain the caus­es of sui­ci­dal­i­ty in T&T. Fur­ther­more, he said it may be time to re­vis­it the Men­tal Health Act, re­move at­tempt­ed sui­cide as a crime un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, and treat it as a men­tal health is­sue.

Ben­jamin said that while Find­CareTT, FCMS, and hot­lines were good ini­tia­tives, peo­ple in cri­sis need ed­help im­me­di­ate­ly. There­fore, peo­ple in cri­sis re­quired a place to go to feel safe and ac­cess help.

Rapid­fire Kidz Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent Kevin Rati­ram said while the in­ter­net and so­cial me­dia had ben­e­fit­ed the world, they al­so came with AI, cy­ber­stalk­ing, and cy­ber­bul­ly­ing. Rati­ram said so­cial me­dia cre­at­ed a fren­zy re­gard­ing phys­i­cal looks and beau­ty, es­pe­cial­ly among women and girls. Some be­came ob­sessed with look­ing bet­ter than oth­ers.