“Why is it taking them so long to come up with the amendment bill,” said the group’s president, Saras Pillai, at a public discussion here today.

She urged the government to speed up the amendments to the law, and hoped Putrajaya would involve Befrienders and other groups working on suicide prevention and mental health problems.

In March, law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said that a study on the proposed amendments to the Penal Code was almost ready and would be submitted to the Cabinet.

Under the Penal Code, an attempt to commit suicide is a criminal offence punishable by up to a year’s jail, or a fine, or both.

Neil Hawkins, head of Befrienders Worldwide, said creating an open discussion on suicide and mental health would help to overcome the sense of shame that still exists.

He said people in Britain were now opening up to talk about suicide and mental health without shame, stigma, and judgement.

Saras urged Malaysians to have an open discussion on suicide to allay some of the stigmas.

She said schools were reluctant to allow Befrienders to speak about suicide despite the fact that young people have a lot of mental health problems. “They would tell us not to talk about suicide. Yet that is the very purpose of us being there at the schools,” she said.