Indigenous suicide in three of the country's departments

Indigenous mental health is compromised in the country. Sinergias developed an explanatory model to illustrate the cases in the departments of Chocó, Vaupés and Córdoba.

According to the World Health Organization, the indigenous population in Latin America and the Caribbean is 10% of the total (55 million people). Today they are the ones who have the least access to mental health services and in Colombia there is no exception: indigenous people have been facing mental health problems such as the consumption of psychoactive substances and suicide.

Sinergias, in the framework of a consultancy of the Ministry of Health, built an intervention proposal for ethnic groups with suicidal behavior that allowed to know the depth of this problem in the three departments.

In the bibliographic research and in consultation with local and traditional authorities in the regions, the organization found that young people and older adults have the highest prevalence of suicidal behavior.

At the departmental level, the three regions reveal the social suffering of ethnic groups as a result of unequal development, contact with the West or the armed conflict. For example, in Córdoba, suicidal behavior is found among the Emberá people (Tierralta) and has been triggered by the deterritorialization brought about by the development of the Urrá hydroelectric project; in Chocó, there have been cases among the Ette, Wounaan and Emberá Chamí peoples and all have been related to the effects of the armed conflict on their way of life. And in Vaupés, the different suicidal behaviors have been related to the contact with the West.

“This corresponds to a history that can be read on different scales with repercussions on the traditional way of life, which has generated clearly defined by the population as a loss of the meaning of life and identification as indigenous,” says Pablo Montoya, director of Sinergias.

The organization proposed an explanatory model that reveals the importance of contextualizing each action in a specific way (due to the variety of communities, traditions and customs in ethnic peoples). Indeed, in a culturally and ethnically diverse country, there is the challenge of recognizing traditional care within Western health. Working on the joint development of intercultural standards, guidelines and protocols is necessary, especially when dealing with these issues.

"The challenges for public health in a country like ours demand the development of global and local approaches, contextualized to each community and problem. It is not impossible: countries like Chile or Canada have achieved it. We must work hard to achieve an intercultural health model that will lead to the development of everyone," adds Montoya.