CEFTUS Public Forum in the House of Commons

16 October 2017,
House of Commons
The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) put on a public forum in the House of Commons on the issue of suicide among the Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot diasporas of Europe. The event was hosted and chaired by Heidi Alexander MP and featured keynote speakers Ozlem Eylem of the Centre for Psychiatry Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine; Dr Aradhana Perry of East London NHS Foundation Trust, City & Hackney Directorate Department of Psychology, The Raybould Centre, Homerton Hospital; Dr Esra Caglar, Consultant Child Psychiatrist and Adolescent Psychiatrist of the Tavistock Clinic; Nursel Tas, Chief Executive Officer of DERMAN; Ertanc Hidayettin, Educationalist and Columnist; Dr Cemal Kavasogullari, General Practitioner at Woodstock Medical Center; and Dr Erminia Colucci, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, School of Science and Technology at Department of Psychology of Middlesex University.

Dr Erminia Colucci presented her research regarding the cultural impact of suicide rates around the world. She contrasted the experiences of Italy and India, where suicide rates are low and high respectively. Dr Colucci spoke about how suicide is gendered, giving the examples of India again, where abuse against women is prominent, and Australia where a harmful culture of “macho” masculinity is prominent. She detailed how there is a higher risk of suicide among second generation immigrants and gave examples of gendered reasons for suicide among the Turkish diaspora, with one-quarter of female Turkish migrants in Switzerland saying that violence in the family was the main problem. Dr Colucci explained how migrant women are trapped by economic and cultural barriers, with less access to healthcare services and greater levels of social marginalisation. She concluded by calling for suicide prevention to go beyond simply clinical measures, with multi-sectoral, multi-component approaches needed.

You can view the debate here: http://ceftus.org/2017/10/17/westminster-debate-suicide-in-turkish-kurdish-cypriot-diasporas-in-europe/