Islamabad: On Friday, Pakistan accepted a change to its colonial-era criminal legislation that eliminates the penalty for suicide attempts. Section 325 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, which dealt with punishing suicide attempts, had been abolished by the parliament of Pakistan. Suicide or attempted suicide was a crime under the law, and it was punishable by a year in jail, a fine, or both.
According to the law, ‘Anyone who tries suicide or commits any act that contributes to the commission of such an offence will be punished with simple imprisonment for a time that may not exceed one year, or with fine, or with both’. According to a press release from the President’s House, the bill was finalised when President Dr. Arif Alvi signed the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill 2022, which eliminates the penalty for suicide attempts.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had previously proposed the legislation reform, which was approved by the Senate in May of this year. The goal of the amendment is that ‘the issue of suicide needs to be dealt with as an illness and should be treated as one’.
Although reliable statistics on the exact number of suicides each year are lacking, a previous research by the World Health Organization (WHO) projected that 8.9 suicides per 100,000 persons occurred in Pakistan in 2019. In other terms, in 2019 around 19,331 persons committed suicide. The true figure is thought to be significantly higher because many incidents go unreported to evade police inquiries. Decriminalization could make it easier to understand the real number of suicides that occur in the nation each year.
Post Your Comments