Economic hardships driving men to suicide-Bishop Chikoya
By Adrian Mwanza
ECONOMIC and financial challenges are the leading causes of suicide among Zambian men, former Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) Secretary General Bishop Emmanuel Chikoya has said.
In an interview with The Mast, Bishop Chikoya said many men were driven to take their own lives due to the severe economic hardships they were facing.
He said it was unfortunate that Zambia’s harsh economic conditions had left many men struggling to cope.
“The cases of suicide have spiked, have risen in the past few months unprecedently, and one major reason is the high cost of living, which forces people to give up. Most men as sole providers for families resolve to kill themselves, which should not be the case,” he said.
Bishop Chikoya said societal pressures had also played a significant role in the rising suicide cases among men.
He explained that society often placed the burden of being the sole provider on men, which was contributing to their economic and emotional stress.
“This is another cause of suicide. Society projects men as people who should not have any form of weakness despite going through a lot of hardships. This worsens the man’s strength,” he said.
Bishop Chikoya said societal expectations had compounded the problem, as many men struggled to open up and share their challenges.
He noted that unlike women who often talked openly about their problems, men tended to keep their struggles to themselves.
“There is a need to come up with things like indabas where men can freely talk about their problems without fear of being laughed at or ridiculed. The other problem is that most men are trying to live beyond their means by buying fancy cars and even involving themselves in clandestine activities like extramarital affairs, which becomes a huge cost to their lives,” he said.
