Punjab Immigrants In Canada Worried Over Suicide Rate In Canada

Caught between demands of traditional parents who migrated from India and peer pressure from their friends, nine young second generation Indian Canadians have committed suicide since September last year, according to a voluntary group.

Members of Sahara, a support group formed to help youth of the Punjabi-Canadian community to tackle depression as a result of cultural pressures, met here to discuss the problems of growing up in an alien culture.

Community activist Daljeet Dhillon said, When you are growing up as an Indian, Punjabi or Sikh, you are thrown into a whole new world. Published reports quoted him as saying, Your parents dont really know what youre going through. There is peer pressure rn the community.

 

Guelph-based lawyer T Sher Singh, who was the keynote speaker at the meeting, said cultural differences can scare the daylights out of some people.

We need to open up communication and tell people in our community that its okay to talk about these issues, Namrata Dhillon was quoted as saying.

There can be a real pressure to act a certain way or dress a certain way, 15-year-old Naveen Atwal said.

To see guys who were very outgoing and popular do this (commit suicide) shocked a lot of people, said Manvinder Pabla.

But this has also driven me to get involved to a major extent and would love to do something to help with the problem.

Unless people begin to share what they feel and experience, I am afraid suicide will continue to happen, said Pritam Singh.

It does not always have to result in a suicide - it can also take the form of violence, substance abuse, battering women and other destructive behaviour known to the Punjabi and other communities.

Pritam Singh, also a community activist, told this agency that : I know something is terribly wrong when I see young people with expressionless faces and a lack of exuberance. They have misery written all over

Many children of the families that follow Sikh traditions have fear written on their faces. I see symptoms portraying a life without meaning and purpose, a life that quickly leads to acute depression, substance abuse (drug addiction) and ultimately to suicide, he lamented.