{"id":56798,"date":"2023-07-20T14:30:21","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T05:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2023\/jul\/20\/its-a-huge-sign-of-progress-the-battle-to-decriminalise-suicide"},"modified":"2023-07-20T14:30:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T05:30:21","slug":"its-a-huge-sign-of-progress-the-battle-to-decriminalise-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=56798","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a huge sign of progress\u2019: the battle to decriminalise suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In at least 17 countries, suicide remains a criminal offence \u2013 a \u2018huge barrier\u2019 to mental health care. As Ghana becomes one of four countries to overturn its law in a year, others could follow<\/p>\n<p>When Ghana\u2019s parliament voted to <a href=\"https:\/\/newsghana.com.gh\/attempted-suicide-decriminalized-in-ghana\/\">decriminalise suicide<\/a> and attempted suicide in March, Prof Joseph Osafo felt a weight lift from his shoulders.<\/p>\n<p>Osafo, head of psychology at the University of Ghana, had been engaged in a near 20-year battle to abolish the law \u2013 brought in by the British \u2013 which stated that anyone who attempts suicide should face imprisonment or a fine.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2023\/jul\/20\/its-a-huge-sign-of-progress-the-battle-to-decriminalise-suicide\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In at least 17 countries, suicide remains a criminal offence \u2013 a \u2018huge barrier\u2019 to mental health care. As Ghana becomes one of four countries to overturn its law in a year, others could followWhen Ghana\u2019s parliament voted to decriminalise suicide and a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[401,246,41,1225,59,566,1890,70,744,60,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-americas","category-asia-pacific","category-ghana","category-global-development","category-global-health","category-guyana","category-malaysia","category-mental-health","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56799,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56798\/revisions\/56799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}