letter: self-immolation in women: addressing an urgent human crisis

Dear editor, self-immolation, or suicide attempted by burning, is one of the most devastating methods of suicide, with up to a seventy percent fatality rate. evidence suggests that young married females who are deprived and illiterate are most prone to committing self-immolation, especially in the middle eastern countries, india, and sri lanka. the results of a study revealed that self-immolation is the cause for up to seventy percent of suicides in some regions of iran. the study’s results further highlighted that more than seventy percent of those people who self- immolated were females with a mean age of twenty-nine. unfortunately, due to ongoing conflicts, less is known about self-immolation in iraq, where the situation seems to be much worse. therefore, the present article’s emphasis is on self-immolation among iraqi women as an urgent human crisis.