Preventing Suicide Among Marriage Immigrants and Foreign Nationals... Support in 12 Languages Including Chinese and Vietnamese

Multilingual Support System Established
for Suicide Prevention among
Marriage Immigrants and Foreign Nationals

Information on Suicide Prevention Support Agencies Written in Mongolian

The Korea Suicide Prevention Center (Chairman Hwang Taeyeon) announced on September 3 that, in cooperation with the Korea Healthy Family Promotion Agency (President Park Guyoun), it has established a support system to provide information on suicide prevention support services in multiple languages for marriage immigrants and foreign nationals who have attempted suicide.

Currently, when the police or fire department discover individuals who have attempted suicide, they provide information to suicide prevention centers without the individual's consent. The centers then inform the referred individuals of their right to request the destruction of personal information and confirm whether they wish to use the services. However, in the case of foreign nationals who have attempted suicide, language barriers have often prevented sufficient communication regarding their right to request the destruction of personal information and the use of services, making it difficult to intervene promptly. Issues such as text message garbling due to language mismatches and delays in counseling caused by the lack of interpreters during the messaging process have also hindered effective support.

In response, the Danuri Call Center 1577-1366, operated by the Promotion Agency, will provide translated explanations of the information provision procedures for suicide attempters in 12 languages, and will support three-way interpretation calls during the process of informing marriage immigrants, foreign nationals who have attempted suicide, and suicide survivors about personal information collection and usage, as well as during suicide prevention counseling. Danuri Call Center 1577-1366 is a comprehensive information center for multicultural families, offering daily life information, interpretation, and emergency support for victims of violence in 13 languages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for multicultural families, marriage immigrants, and foreign residents.

The 13 languages are Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog (Philippines), Mongolian, Russian, Thai, Khmer (Cambodia), Japanese, Uzbek, Lao, Nepali, English, and Korean.

Chairman Hwang Taeyeon of the Foundation stated, "Through this cooperation with the Promotion Agency, we believe that the difficulties encountered during intervention with marriage immigrants and foreign nationals who have attempted suicide will be actively addressed." He added, "We will continue our efforts to establish a more robust suicide prevention safety net and support system for high-risk and marginalized groups."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.