Aboriginal teenager, 18, takes her own life as indigenous suicide rises to 30 in just four months 

A community has been left devastated after an 18-year-old’s girl was found dead in an apparent suicide on Thursday.

The death in remote region of Balgo in WA brings the total number of indigenous suicides to 30 this year, according to the National Indigenous Critical Response Service. 

The suicide is the 10th in the Kimberly region since the beginning of 2018. 

Eight of those deaths were children under the age of 18, suicide prevention researcher Gerry Georgatos a suicide prevention researcher told ABC News.

It comes after an inquest into the suicides of 13 young people across the region. 

WA Coroner Ros Fogliani who concluded that ‘inter-generational trauma’ was responsible to the terrible loss of life.

Three 12-year-old indigenous children have committed suicide since January, according to the National indigenous Critical Response Service (NICRS).

Rochelle Pryor, 14, took her life in January after posting a heartbreaking message to Facebook.

‘Once I’m gone, the bullying and racism will stop,’she wrote.

She was one of five young indigenous girls who took their own lives across Australia in January.

The recently revealed federal budget stated $461million would be spent on youth mental health – but only $5million over four years would go towards indigenous youth suicide.

The funding, that comes in to effect next financial year, may not come soon enough for some.

Indigenous psychologist and Professor Tracy Westerman said the government is not targeting the right areas. 

‘Consistently we just don’t have the services that we need in those remote areas,’ she said.

Five young indigenous girls took their own lives across Australia in January (pictured Rochelle Pryor, from Perth, took her own life after a cry for help on social media)

Professor Westerman said the issues are developed at a policy level with city-based policy makers naturally biased and with indigenous mental health and suicide still not fully understood.

‘There’s a narrative that gets created in Australia that somehow indigenous people are responsible for the suicides of their children and there’s a lack of empathy for bereaved indigenous parents,’ she said.  

Gerry Georgatos has previously said poverty and living conditions in remote indigenous communities are part of the problem.

‘Suicide is multi-factorial and multilayered with an arc of issues, some which intertwine, but it is not complex. There is an underwriting narrative — poverty,’ Mr Georgatos wrote for Independent Australia.

‘In my research – borne robustly from the experiential – responding to suicide-affected families, nearly 100 per cent of First Nations suicides are of people living below the poverty line. 

For confidential support call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14 

Gerry Georgatos has previously said poverty and living conditions in often remote indigenous communities are part of the problem