The number of military service members who have taken their lives in the first six months of this year has already surpassed the annual average of about 15 from 2017 to last year.
Some have attributed the rise to increased cross-strait tensions, while others have said it was because one-year compulsory service returned on Jan. 1 after it had been shortened to four months from 2013.
Association of Human Rights for Military Personnel founder Chen Pi-e (陳碧娥) said she believes that workload, not service length, is a more likely source of stress for military personnel.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
The number of troops has plummeted from about 500,000 in 2001 to about 160,000 today, meaning fewer recruits are handling more responsibilities, Chen said.
Moreover, the nation’s falling birthrate has also led the military to accept “substandard” recruits, she said.
“There is insufficient staff at the lowest levels within the military. Compared with a few decades ago, one service member now has to take on many roles,” she said.
“With greater pressure, combined with recruits who already have a lot of problems, it is only logical that the number of suicides would rise,” she said, adding that many recruits are either psychologically unfit for service or joined the military as a last resort due to financial troubles.
Lo Shih-mao (羅時茂), a psychiatrist from the military-run Tri-Service General Hospital’s Beitou Branch in Taipei, said that factors not exclusive to those in the armed forces, such as bereavement and relationship issues, can lead to someone attempting suicide.
Young, newly enlisted service members and those who have difficulty readjusting following deployment, as well as those with mental health issues might also be at greater risk, Lo said.
That soldiers have access to lethal weapons increases the chances that an act of self-harm could be fatal, he said.
The relatively closed environment within the military might also make it more susceptible to “suicide clusters,” he said.
Over the years, the Ministry of National Defense has said that the suicide rate among soldiers is relatively lower than that of the general population or the US military.
During a legislative session in 2021, then-deputy minister of national defense Wang Shin-lung (王信龍) said the suicide rate among military personnel was about 7.9 per 100,000 people, while the average suicide rate in the general population was 13.2 per 100,000 people.
However, in late March, then-minister of national defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said that suicides within the armed forces were “on the rise,” adding that the incidents were “regrettable,” while pledging to enhance military counseling.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) have said that the defense ministry has a serious lack of mental health counselors.
According to data provided by Wu, among the more than 150 suicides or attempted suicide cases within the military from 2019 to last year, only 11 of them had been on the ministry’s counseling list.
That means that as much as 93 percent of the people who should have been on the watch list were not.
Among the 99 military personnel who died of suicide during the same period, only five were previously on the counseling list.
“The numbers show that the armed forces’ suicide prevention mechanism is not working,” Wu said during an April 24 legislative session.
DPP Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said the military has only about 400 military counselors, meaning that about one counselor has to meet the needs of 400 soldiers.
Meanwhile, only 69 of them are certified counselors, Wu said.
Chen said the root of the issue goes back to the lack of sufficient staffing within the armed forces.
That deficiency means that the chief counselor of a military unit, whose primary job is to maintain soldiers’ mental health, has to be responsible for other jobs, such as political warfare, military promotion and tasks handed down from their superiors.
“They are too busy to focus on all their duties and do not have the time nor the professional skills required to care for troops’ mental health,” she said.
The Ministry of National Defense has said that most military personnel who tried to harm themselves this year did so due to family or financial reasons, or depression.
The ministry said it has continued to enhance mental health education among military personnel to prevent self-harm.
Tri-Service General Hospital’s Beitou Branch has arranged 82 workshops and lecturers on suicide prevention to visit military units around the country this year, the ministry said.
The military is also making sure service members know where to ask for help, including by working with civilian counseling organizations to provide counseling services, it added.
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call the 1925 or 1995 hotlines.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash